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Letter to the Wall Street Journal
By
William R. Harvey, President of Hampton University
Chairman,
President’s Advisory Board on Historically Black
Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
A recent Wall
Street Journal article by Jason Riley questioned
the relevance of historically black colleges and
universities (HBCUs) in today's society. He complained
about President Obama's conventional approach to HBCUs
and opined that "instead of more subsidies and toothless
warnings to shape up", the President and federal
government ought to ". . . remake these schools to meet
today's challenges."
I cannot
speak for the President, but I have spoken to him about
HBCUs. An ardent supporter of historically black
colleges and universities, President Obama understands
and appreciates their value to the nation and the world.
The facts justify his support, i.e., representing 4% of
all American colleges and universities, HBCUs conferred
over 22% of all degrees awarded to African Americans.
With only 13% of African Americans in higher education,
these colleges awarded nearly 30% of all undergraduate
degrees earned by African American students in the
science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
disciplines; 50% of all bachelor's degrees in teacher
education received by African American students; and 85%
of Doctor of Medicine degrees acquired by African
Americans according to statistics compiled by the
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher
Education.
Most HBCUs are also
economic engines in their communities. According to a
2006 National Center for Educational Statistics report,
the short term economic impact of HBCUs is $10 billion
annually, providing more than 180,000 full and part-time
jobs. The report also noted, "to put that in
perspective, the rolled up employment impact of the
nation's HBCUs exceeds the 177,000 jobs at the Bank of
America in 2006, which was the nation's 23rd largest
employer."
In attempting to
make his case, Riley presented biased, antiquated
suppositions such as articles written by Thomas
Sowell some 36-years ago along with references by
Christopher Jencks and David Riesman some 43-years ago.
Riley also makes such groundless claims as " . .
.available evidence shows that in the main, these
students are better off exercising their non-HBCU
options." What evidence? This certainly is not the
experience that we have seen at Hampton University.
Another ridiculous
assertion that Riley offers is that "For-profit entities
could be brought in to manage other schools." He uses
the University of Phoenix, a for-profit college, as an
example stating that they confer more bachelor's degrees
on black students than any other school. Does he really
want HBCUs to model themselves after an institution
whose latest graduation rates, as reported by the
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS),
was 1% at 4 years, 4% at 6 years, and 6% at 8 years?
Riley's mindset,
journalistic standards, and research methodology aside,
as President of Hampton University, and Chairman of the
President’s Advisory Board on HBCUs, I want to provide a
more accurate view of HBCUs and the quality work many of
these institutions perform.
First and foremost,
just like predominately white institutions, HBCUs are
not a monolith. Some are exceptional, the majority are
sufficient —all but a few are accredited institutions
that meet or exceed the standards set by the accrediting
bodies for any institution. An acknowledgment of some of
the world-class academic and research activities at HBCUs is in order. Let me begin with my own
institution—Hampton University.
In August, Hampton
University began seeing its first patients at the
Hampton University Proton Therapy cancer treatment
center. The center is one of only eight in the United
States and the largest free-standing facility in the
world. Sixty-five percent of the patients treated at
this facility will have prostate cancer, the other 35%
will be those with breast, lung, ocular, and pediatric
cancers.
Faculty in our
School of Pharmacy have been involved in Alzheimer's
research. If their research on proteins in the blood can
provide a link to Alzheimer's, then a protocol
establishing an early diagnostic test will allow
physicians to treat the disease before it manifests
itself.
Our Skin of Color
Institute is a research center dedicated to probing
issues, challenges, and diseases unique to the skin in
people of color. The goal is to develop new and better
treatments.
In 2007, Hampton
University launched a $140 million weather satellite
from Vandenberg Air Force Base to study noctilucent
clouds in the ionosphere. With this feat, Hampton became
the first historically black college or university to
have 100% responsibility and control of a NASA satellite
mission.
Hampton is also
home to the National Center for African American
Marriages and Parenting. The Center's mission is to
strengthen families in the African American community by
helping them gain essential knowledge, skills, and other
resources required for building and sustaining healthy
marriages and practicing effective parenting.
Hampton's
nationally known physics department continues to do
outstanding work. One physics group has received 12
patents on prostate and breast cancer detection devices.
Another group has 14 patents on prosthesis for
artificial limbs.
The Hampton
University Leadership Academy is providing a
multi-faceted approach to improving the level and
effectiveness of school leaders. Hampton is the only
educational entity in the entire state of Virginia to
receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education in
support of this initiative, and will work with the
public school systems in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Franklin,
Danville, and Roanoke, Virginia.
When one looks at
the depth and breadth of Hampton University's academic,
research, and public service activities, any objective
analysis will show that Hampton does not need a remake,
as it is clearly one of the best and most productive
modest-sized universities in the country.
Other HBCUs are
also doing outstanding work. Xavier University in New
Orleans has educated nearly 25% of the approximately
6,000 black pharmacists practicing in the United States,
and ranks first in the nation in placing African
American students in medical schools. Tougaloo College
ranks among the top 50 institutions whose graduates earn
PhDs in science and engineering disciplines. More than
40% of Mississippi's practicing African-American
physicians, dentists, other health professionals, and
attorneys are graduates of Tougaloo College.
North Carolina A&T
is the nation's largest producer of African-American
bachelors and doctorates in engineering. North Carolina
A&T, Tuskegee, Florida A&M, Spelman, Tennessee State,
Prairie View A&M, Morgan State, Howard, and Alabama A&M
cumulatively graduate more than 30% of all African
Americans who receive engineering degrees.
In addition to
training physicians, dentists, and other health
professionals, Meharry Medical College has a Center of
AIDS Health Disparities Research. Faculty at this Center
have discovered and patented a salve that removes
cholesterol from the HIV virus causing it to lose its
ability to infect.
This short list of
some of the research and academic activities at HBCUs
refutes the assertion that HBCUs are inferior. In fact,
it illustrates that some HBCUs are superior.
Better research
could have enlightened Riley immensely. Sometimes,
however, particularly when a viewpoint is inaccurate or
extreme, people don't want to be confused with the
facts.
Clearly,
historically black colleges and universities do not need
"a makeover" or "a new mission." What is needed are
major publications, such as the Wall Street Journal to
conduct solid and sincere research so it can better
appreciate the value and contributions HBCUs make.
Source:
HamptonU
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* *
Black Colleges Need a
New Mission
Once an essential response to racism, they are now
academically inferior
By
Jason L. Riley
President Obama has
shown a commendable willingness to shake up the status
quo in K-12 education by advocating reforms, such as
charter schools,
that have left his teachers union base none-too-pleased.
So it's unfortunate that he has such a conventional
approach to higher education, and to historically black
colleges and universities (HBCUs) in particular. Earlier
this month, Mr. Obama hosted a
White House reception to celebrate the
contributions of the nation's 105 black
colleges and to reiterate his pledge to
invest another $850 million in these
institutions over the next decade.
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Recalling the circumstances under which many
of these schools were created after the
Civil War, the president noted that "at a
critical time in our nation's history, HBCUs
waged war against illiteracy and ignorance
and won." He added: "You have made it
possible for millions of people to achieve
their dreams and gave so many young people a
chance they never thought they'd have, a
chance that nobody else would give them." The reality today,
however, is that there's no shortage of traditional
colleges willing to give black students a chance. When
segregation was legal, black colleges were responsible
for almost all black collegians. Today, nearly 90% of
black students spurn such schools, and the available
evidence shows that, in the main, these students are
better off exercising their non-HBCU options.
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"Even the best
black colleges and universities do not approach the
standards of quality of respectable institutions,"
according to economist
Thomas Sowell. "None has a
department ranking among the leading graduate
departments in any of the 29 fields surveyed by the
American Council of Education. None ranks among the
'selective' institutions with regard to student
admissions.
None has a student body whose College Board
scores are within 100 points of any school in the Ivy
League."
Mr. Sowell wrote
that in an academic journal in 1974, yet with few
exceptions the description remains accurate. These days
the better black schools—Howard,
Spelman,
Morehouse—are
rated "selective" in the
U.S. News rankings, but their
average SAT scores still lag behind those at decent
state schools like the University of Texas at Austin,
never mind a
Stanford or
Yale.
In 2006, according
to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the
six-year graduation rate at HBCUs was 37%. That's 20
percentage points below the national average and eight
percentage points below the average of black students at
other colleges. A recent Washington Monthly
magazine survey of colleges with the worst graduation
rates featured black schools in first and second place,
and in eight of the top 24 spots.
The economists
Roland Fryer of Harvard and Michael Greenstone of MIT
have found that black colleges are inferior to
traditional schools in preparing students for
post-college life. "In the 1970s, HBCU matriculation was
associated with higher wages and an increased
probability of graduation, relative to attending a
[traditional college]," they wrote in a 2007 paper. "By
the 1990s, however, there is a substantial wage penalty.
Overall, there is a 20% decline in the relative wages of
HBCU graduates in just two decades." The authors
concluded that "by some measures, HBCU attendance
appears to retard black progress."
Mr. Obama and
Education Secretary
Arne Duncan have urged HBCUs to
improve their graduation rates—Mr. Duncan has said they
need to increase "exponentially"—but the administration
has brought little pressure to bear and is offering
substantial financial assistance to keep them afloat.
Howard and Spelman have endowments valued in the
hundreds of millions of dollars, but a large majority of
black colleges have very small endowments and more than
80% get most of their revenue from the government.
Instead of more
subsidies and toothless warnings to shape up, Mr. Obama
ought to use the federal government's leverage to remake
these schools to meet today's challenges.
Uneconomically
small black colleges could be consolidated. For-profit
entities could be brought in to manage other schools.
(For the past two years, the University of Phoenix, a
for-profit college, has conferred more bachelor's
degrees on black students than any other school.) Still
other HBCUs could be repurposed as community colleges
that focus on developmental courses to compensate for
the poor elementary and secondary educations that so
many black children still receive.
In 1967, two white
academics,
Christopher Jencks and David Riesman,
published a bleak but prescient assessment of black
colleges in the Harvard Educational Review. They
predicted that these schools are "for the most part,
likely to remain fourth-rate institutions at the tail
end of the academic procession." Messrs. Jencks and
Riesman were called racists, and honest comprehensive
studies of black colleges have since been rare.
Black colleges are
at a crossroads. At one time black colleges were an
essential response to racism. They trained a generation
of civil rights lawyers and activists who helped end
segregation. Their place in U.S. history is secure.
Today, however, dwindling enrollments and endowments
indicate that fewer and fewer blacks believe that these
schools, as currently constituted, represent the best
available academic choice.
A black president
is uniquely qualified to restart this discussion. Anyone
who cares about the future of black higher education
should hope that he does.
Mr. Riley is a member of the
Journal's editorial board.
Source:
Wall Street Journal
* *
* * *
False
Comparisons: the Plight of Historically Black
Colleges?—October 4, 2010—by
Marybeth Gasman—No matter how many times
historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)
demonstrate progress and success, they continue to take
a beating from ill-informed critics. The latest incident
appeared in
The Wall Street Journal. Once again, the
author used flawed analysis in an attempt to show that
HBCUs are inferior.
Since their
inception, many people have labeled HBCUs inferior even
though they are responsible for educating the majority
of the African-American middle class as we know it. When
hurling criticism at HBCUs, most naysayers point to the
words of Black conservatives—such as Thomas Sowell, who
has lambasted HBCUs for decades, or sociologists
Christopher Jencks and Davie Riesman, whose 1967 study
of HBCUs labeled them “academic disaster areas.” What
these critics fail to realize is that neither Sowell nor
Jencks and Riesman did empirical research on HBCUs to
make their claims—instead, they relied only on anecdote
and personal experience.—Chronicle
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* * *
U.S. News & World Report Historically Black Colleges and
Universities Ranking
HBCU Graduation Rates: Taking A Close Look! (2006)
* *
* * *
Black Student
College Graduation Rates Remain Low, But Modest Progress
Begins to Show—Nationwide, the black student
graduation rate remains at a dismally low 42 percent.
But the rate has improved by three percentage points
over the past two years. More encouraging is the fact
that over the past seven years the black student
graduation rate has improved at almost all of the
nation's highest-ranked universities.
On page 11 of this
issue of JBHE [Journal of Blacks in Higher Education]
we report the encouraging news that African-American
enrollments at the vast majority of our nation's
highest-ranked colleges and universities have shown
significant improvement over the past quarter-century.
But a more
important statistical measure of the performance of
blacks in higher education is how many black students
throughout the nation are completing school and earning
a college degree. Department of Education data reveals
that, as expected, black students who earn a four-year
college degree have incomes that are substantially
higher than blacks who have only some college experience
but have not earned a degree. Most important, blacks who
complete a four-year college education have a median
income that is near parity with similarly educated
whites. According to the most recent statistics, the
nationwide college graduation rate for black students
stands at an appallingly low rate of 42 percent. This
figure is 20 percentage points below the 62 percent rate
for white students. Here, the only positive news we have
to report is that over the past two years the black
student graduation rate has improved by three percentage
points.—JBHE
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* * *
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Stand and Prosper
Private
Black Colleges and Their Students
By
Henry N. Drewry and Humphrey Doermann
The
authors present a fascinating study of the
past and present of 45 private black
colleges. For a long period in American
history, these institutions were the only
educational option for blacks, and they
continue to be viewed as sanctuaries for
black students looking for supportive
cultural and educational environments.
The
first part of the book explores the
pre-Civil War period, when education of
slaves was illegal; the creation of schools
by abolitionist and former slaves after the
Civil War; and the early period of
segregation. |
The second part
focuses on the more recent history of the colleges and
the changing social and educational context in which
they operate, as well as their role in developing black
leaders and the growing black middle class. The book
includes much factual data on the colleges but aptly
conveys the important contributions of these schools as
race relations have evolved and the challenges they face
in the future, ranging from chronic underfunding to
attacks on affirmative action. A valuable resource.—Vanessa
Bush, Booklist
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* * *
HBCU Chiefs
Address Grad Rates—December 15, 2009—Under renewed
scrutiny about lackluster graduation rates, a group of
historically black college presidents is pushing for new
assessment tools they say will better capture student
outcomes.
While details
remain sparse, a report to be published Wednesday by the
Thurgood Marshall College Fund suggests that the
six-year graduation rate as measured by federal data
should be replaced with a new model. Echoing complaints
often registered by community college leaders, the
report, “Making the Grade: Improving Degree Attainment
at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs),”
argues that federal data fail to capture the successes
of transfer students and part-time students who often
attend the institutions. Moreover, the data fail to
account for the fact that many HBCU students face
additional barriers to success, including lower
socioeconomic status and the need for remediation, the
report notes.
HBCUs have a
history of serving underserved and nontraditional
students, which places the institutions at a
disadvantage when compared to other colleges under the
six-year graduation rate standard, according to Mary
Sias, president of Kentucky State University and a
co-author of the report.
“You’re not
comparing apples to apples,” Sias said on a conference
call Monday. “If you gave me the same students, I would
be able to do as well or better than the other
universities that are majority-serving institutions.”
Nonetheless, the
six-year graduation rate has emerged as the federal
standard for comparing very different institutions. And
when viewed through that lens, HBCUs often don’t appear
to be doing well. When the Associated Press
analyzed the six-year graduation rates of 83
four-year HBCUs earlier this year, it found that just 37
percent of black students finished within six years.
While HBCUs have long touted their special role in
educating African Americans, the report noted that the
collective graduation rate for black students at HBCUs
is actually 4 percentage points lower than the national
college graduation rate for black students.—InsideHigherEd
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* * *
Are Historically
Black Colleges Worth It?—By Dwayne Ashley September 20,
2007—Fryer and Greenstone speculate about the
negative impact of U.S. v. Fordice (1992), which
required states to either integrate HBCUs or find
“educational justification” for their continuance. But
HBCUs have responded to this challenge by successfully
integrating their student bodies and faculties to
reflect the nation’s growing diversity, while still
remaining true to their core mission of providing
affordable, high-quality education to African-Americans.
There is another possible explanation for the relative
wage decline, one that Fryer and Greenstone acknowledge:
The data could reflect improvements in how majority
institutions educated Black students, and not a decline
in HBCU standards. Looking at the data from this vantage
point, the study could well be titled,
“African-Americans Demonstrate Education Gains at
Majority White Schools.”
Such a conclusion doesn’t even require particularly
sophisticated analysis. Following the civil rights
movement of the 1960s, for example, a relatively large
number of African-American students entered the nation’s
colleges and universities. The result was a period of
turmoil and adjustment for students and institutions
alike, as well as the lingering impact of persistent
racism.
In retrospect, it is obvious that HBCUs, largely spared
these wrenching social adjustments, would have
advantages that could be reflected in relatively higher
incomes after graduation. Twenty years later, however,
America was a very different place. Although issues of
discrimination and racial inequality persisted in the
1990s, it is clear that both majority colleges and their
Black students became better equipped to succeed in the
classroom and beyond.—DiverseEducation
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Charles S. Johnson
Leadership Beyond the Veil in the Age of
Jim Crow
By Patrick J.Gilpin and Marybeth Gasman
The
milestones for blacks in twentieth-century
America—the Harlem Renaissance, the struggle
for equal education, and the civil rights
movement—would have been inconceivable
without the contributions of one important
but often overlooked figure, Charles S.
Johnson (1893-1956). This compelling
biography demonstrates the scope of his
achievements, situates him among other black
intellectuals of his time, and casts new
light on a pivotal era in the struggle for
black equality in America. An impresario of
Harlem Renaissance culture, an eminent
Chicago-trained sociologist, a pioneering
race relations leader, and an educator of
the generation that freed itself from
legalized segregation, Johnson was a
visionary who linked the everyday struggles
of blacks with the larger intellectual and
political currents of the day. |
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His distinguished
career included twenty-eight years at Fisk University,
where he established the famed Race Relations Institute
and became Fisk's first black president.
* *
* * *
Duncan
Challenges Black Colleges to Improve Teacher Training
and Graduation Rates—By Eric Kelderman—Durham, N.C.—
June 3, 2010—Education Secretary Arne Duncan
reaffirmed on Thursday the White House's commitment to
helping historically black colleges survive and thrive
into the future, but in a speech here he urged the
institutions to improve their teacher-training programs
and graduation rates.Mr. Duncan made his remarks to
several hundred leaders and staff and faculty members of
black colleges who were attending a symposium on
historically black colleges at North Carolina Central
University, which is celebrating its centennial year.
The secretary said the administration of President Obama
is giving black colleges unprecedented levels of
attention and support in an effort to strengthen their
financial condition. Administration officials spoke at
the graduation ceremonies this spring of more than a
dozen black colleges, including Hampton University, in
Virginia, where the president addressed graduating
students.—Chronicle
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* * *
Salvaging
"Academic Disaster Areas": The Black College Response to
Christopher Jencks and David Riesman's 1967 Harvard
Educational—Review Article by Marybeth Gasman—University
of Pennsylvania—1 March 2006—Within the culture of
vigorous debate and verbal sparring that exists within
the academic community, a phrase like “academic disaster
areas” might be taken with a grain of salt. However, in
the context of the media, especially during a volatile
time for Blacks, such a phrase had an incendiary effect.
Although researchers should not disguise unpopular
findings, they must be cognizant of the negative
outcomes possible when Salvaging “Academic Disaster
Areas” their work is reviewed in the media.
Any bad news about
Black colleges continues to have a devastating effect on
the institutions as a whole. Recently, several Black
colleges have found themselves in dire financial
straits—Morris Brown College (Georgia), Bennett College
(South Carolina), and Texas Southern University
(Houston). Reporters covering these stories have, in the
manner of Jencks and Riesman, painted their shortcomings
with a broad brush, and sometimes generalized them to
include all Black colleges (Basinger, 2003; June, 2002;
Poe, 2002). The exaggerated claims of these news
articles have gained national attention, jeopardizing
the fundraising programs and, in some cases, the
existence of the institutions in question (June 2002;
Poe, 2002; Simmons, 2002).
The historical
efforts of the Black college leaders and of Black
intellectuals to deflect Jencks and Riesman’s criticisms
may point the way for current efforts to avert crisis.
Charles Willie’s actions, on the other hand, were a good
example of how scholars can use the media in a way that
benefits Black colleges. While the attempts of the Black
college presidents to discredit Jencks and Riesman were
important, they were ignored by the media. Willie was a
clever handler of the media and had the benefit of 10
years of hindsight. Just as Jencks and Riesman had
created a “spectacle” (albeit unintentionally), Charles
Willie’s conference was a spectacle as well—one that
elicited an apology from Harvard and at least one of the
original authors (Edelman, 1988; Oriard, 1993; Rayboy &
Dagenais, 1992). Moreover, it led to solid research on
Black colleges.
Lastly, whereas it is reasonable (and accurate) to say
that slavery was a damaging event, applying the idea of
“Blacks as mere victims” as a blanket framework of
interpretation today tends to obscure the agency of
Blacks on their own behalf. Merely looking for the
effects of slavery—such as Uncle Tomism, aping White
culture, internalized racism, etc.—also exonerates White
racists after slavery. This framework led Jencks and
Riesman to miss precisely the developments that would
later cast doubt on their research: growing Black
assertiveness and self-awareness in the 1960s, which
provided a foundation for the continuation and
transformation of Black colleges today.—UPenn
* *
* * *
Truth, Generalizations, and Stigma
An Analysis of the Media's Coverage of Morris
Brown College and Black Colleges Overall
Marybeth Gasman, University of Pennsylvania—1 June 2007
* *
* * *
 |
Born to Rebel; An Autobiography
By
Benjamin E. Mays
Born
the son of a sharecropper in 1894 near
Ninety Six, South Carolina, Benjamin E. Mays
went on to serve as president of Morehouse
College for twenty-seven years and as the
first black president of the Atlanta School
Board. His earliest memory, of a lynching
party storming through his county, taunting
but not killing his father, became for Mays
an enduring image of black-white relations
in the South.
Born to Rebel is the moving
chronicle of his life, a story that
interlaces achievement with the rebuke he
continually confronted. |
* * *
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* * * * *
 |
Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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