WASHINGTON, D.C. — The role that HBCUs will be expected to play in the Obama administration’s “2020 Goal” is on the map — a new Google map, to be precise.
As the 2011 HBCU Week kicked off Monday, Dr. John S. Wilson, Jr., executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, introduced one of the latest Internet-based tools from Google, one of the conference’s sponsors.
Similar to how other Google Maps features work, this one not only enables users to see precisely where all HBCUs are, but how many degrees each institution produces each year, as well as how many more degrees each institution will need to produce each year in order to help reach the Obama administration’s goal of restoring the United States to its former spot as the nation with the highest percentage of college degree-holders in the world.
While the website elicited some oohs and ahs, a few among the 1,000 or so conference attendees said financial resources will prove more crucial to meeting the 2020 goal than the latest Internet gadgetry.
Still, the mere existence of the website serves to reinforce a message that Wilson said HBCU leaders must continue to send about the interconnectedness between their vitality and America’s future.
“A lot of people need a new message about HBCUs,” Wilson said during the conference’s opening plenary session.
Wilson related that federal agency funding to HBCUs has increased under the Obama administration, from $783 million in 2009 to $853 million in 2010. Anticipating some incredulity over the practical relevance of the claim, Wilson told the audience: “If you hear me say funding is up in these ways, and you are less aware of it than you think you should be (and) you really don’t feel it on campus, engage with us more.”
