by Felecia Commodore & Marybeth Gasman A little over a week ago, many of us watched with horror as the story in Charleston, South Carolina at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church unfurled. For some of us, it was a horror we couldn’t fathom happening in 2015. It had to be a bad dream that was […]
The Unique Role of the HBCU Community College
President Obama recently announced his initiative to make attending community college essentially free. This announcement was met with mixed response from the HBCU community. A number of HBCU advocates expressed deep concern as to whether this would prove detrimental to HBCU enrollments. However, in these conversations one subject that was not prevalent were the HBCUs […]
Using Current Successes to Enhance HBCU Recruitment
Recently, Senator Barbara Boxer of California announced that in 2016 she would be retiring after holding her Senate seat since 1992. One of the first people to announce making a run for Boxer’s seat was California Attorney General Kamala Harris. As California is a powerful and influential state and Harris is a rising star, the […]
HBCUs: A History and Future of Preparing Activist Leaders
In the past few weeks, this country has endured concurrent blows of injustice. First, there was the announcement from Ferguson, MO that a grand jury chose to not indict Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 year-old Black man. Then a week later, a grand jury from New York announced […]
HBCU Archival Collections: Repositories of History
The HBCUStory Symposium was held a couple of weeks ago in Washington, D.C. This symposium centered on the importance of knowing, preserving, and sharing the history and legacies of HBCUs. One of reoccurring themes during the event was the importance of HBCU archives and collections as well as historians who respect and tell the HBCU […]
A Collaborating Black College is a Successful Black College
Many HBCUs are doing amazing work as individual institutions. These particular campuses have great initiatives, programming, and services that are exemplary of institutional missions in action. This being the case, there are opportunities for HBCUs to join forces with each other and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to increase the reach and impact of their […]
HBCUs: Where African American Lives and Minds are Valued
Over the past few weeks, the U.S. has found itself coming face to face with the reality of its racist past and present. Another young Black life is gone at the hands of someone who was called to protect and serve. Mike Brown’s death is encircled with unanswered questions, frustrations, grief, rage, disappointment, and for […]
Forward Thinking HBCU Presidents: Beverly Daniel Tatum
Over the last couple of weeks, the higher education community has been discussing, reflecting, and processing the recent announcement of Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum’s pending retirement. President Tatum gained the respect of her colleagues, her students, and those outside of the world of higher education during her tenure as president of Spelman. She […]