WASHINGTON – At the opening ceremony of the 2019 HBCU Conference, Johnathan M. Holifield, executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities quoted Booker T. Washington, telling those in the audience to “Cast down your bucket where you are.”
He meant that HBCUs need to not only build federal partnerships but draw on local resources and advised the crowd to encourage their cities, counties and states to develop HBCU support plans and designate HBCUs as small businesses, among other regional efforts.
“Yes, we have to win Washington D.C.,” Holifield said. “We know that. But we also have to take the fight where we are and replicate what’s happening here where we live.”
The importance of strategic alliances at the federal and local level – and the interplay of the two – was a theme that ran throughout the first day of the conference.
The event kicked off with a federal policy conversation between U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Johnny C. Taylor, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management and the former president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
DeVos began by emphasizing the importance of valuing paths to the workforce outside of four-year degrees. Many positions don’t require a bachelor’s degree, she said, and it’s “imperative that the employer world get together really intentionally with the education world” as early as middle school so students know there are other options like certifications or apprenticeships.
“HBCUs have a very important role to play in this regard,” she said. “… What can you do as institutions that will separate yourselves from others? What can you do to really focus in on and honing those particular niches and offering opportunities in a unique way to students that you’re serving?”
