As the COVID-19 virus spread across the country this spring and more data became available that revealed the disproportionate impact it was having on Black communities, Tennessee State University launched the nation’s first COVID-19 Academy to support residents in its Nashville community. The academy uses a holistic approach to help community members access healthcare, basic human services like food and job training, and education resources to help meet the needs of families who might be impacted — financially and otherwise — for a long time to come.
When the academy launched in May 2020, Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover, TSU’s president, said the institution was hoping to stem the effects of a pandemic that would “work to bridge the health care disparity for people of color that experts say will have a lasting impact for generations to come.”
Dr. M. Christopher Brown II, president of Kentucky State University, said land-grant institutions like TSU and Kentucky State produce the lion’s share of nurses, teachers, military officers and criminal justice professionals — all of whom are desperately needed in this moment of global pandemic and ongoing tensions between police officers and the Black community.
Dr. Eugene Anderson, vice president of external diversity, equity and inclusion for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, said in addition to HBCUs being educational hubs, these institutions are still playing a central part in the critical role of addressing societal problems.
From tackling healthcare disparities through both research to support direct solutions and by graduating more Black doctors and other healthcare professionals, to solutions like Kentucky State’s mobile poultry processing unit, which goes directly to Black farmers in the state to help increase their production in the midst of a national food shortage, these institutions are making an impact. Though they collectively enroll just shy of 100,000 students, these institutions graduate 45% of all Black students who go on to work in agricultural sciences, as well as 10% of all engineers.
APLU and its HBCU member institutions are preparing to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the passing of the second Morrill Act, which provided the land to establish institutions for African Americans during Reconstruction.
On Monday, APLU is hosting a webinar to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the second Morrill Act, but Anderson promises the event will be more than just eating cake and celebrating. It intends to be an acknowledgement of the role the institutions have played and continue to play in the higher ed landscape and American society overall, but also a moment of advocacy to call for increased funding.
