THE BLACK COLLEGE IN THE 21st CENTURY

A NEED FOR RECLAMATION, TRANSFORMATION AND RELEVANCE


This is a call to arms, a call to arms for those who share my view that the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) have been and must continue to be viable instruments in the struggle for racial equality in America. It is a call for us to make a systematic assessment of the current state of HBCUs and devise plans to transform them into institutions to better serve our needs as we navigate the perils of the 21st century. In every historical moment, beginning with the decades immediately proceeding and following emancipation and continuing to the present, the Black colleges have been significant community and national resources. They have not only served to make formal education available to many who would not have had access to such services, they have also been important political, social, and economic agencies in the struggle for racial advancement. However, as we enter what some have called the post-civil rights era, the capacity, role, relevance, and indeed the survival of the Black college are being questioned. In recent years a number of privately funded HBCUs have closed and several others are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The future of state supported HBCUs is also uncertain as calls for merging them with other colleges or eliminating them outright continue to gain traction. In the face of these realities, it is imperative that we launch a national effort to insure the survival of Black colleges as community and national resources and transform them into relevant institutions to meet the challenges of the 21st century. We need a plan to insure survival and relevance.

How do we develop such a plan? A plan, in my estimation, must begin with a thorough and systematic description of the current state of HBCUs on a range of theoretically significant variables. Among other things, the variables or categories would include finances and financial management; leadership selection and performance, including trustees, presidents and other key academic officers; quality and expanse of academic programs; quality and productivity of faculty; student population and performance, and community services. Along with the description, a plan would include a fulsome discussion and explication of the role of the Black college in light of the changed and changing nature and conditions of African Americans in American society. Finally, the plan would include a strategy for transforming the institutions from their current state into one of greater relevance. The development of such a plan would be a challenging but not insurmountable task. We have the necessary human resources and we can raise sufficient funds to make it happen.

We can begin by calling together professors and others who have shown or will express genuine interests in the growth and development of Black colleges. They would be asked to develop a research design for the descriptive study and identify and recruit researchers for its execution. The study would be comprehensive focusing on the state of affairs in the various disciplines as well as individual institutions. The group would also take the lead in organizing symposia and conferences dedicated to discussing the role of Black colleges in contemporary society. The end product of the research and symposia would be a comprehensive document that reflected the objectively collected empirical data and the serious reflections of interested parties on the state of the Black college, their vision of the desired future, and a strategy for getting there.

(The process of leadership selection and the quality of leadership will be critical elements in any descriptive study of the Black colleges. I will comment on them in my next posting.)