The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to build on their shared history of resilience to create new ways of educating students, develop new business relationships, and generate new sources of revenue.
Prior to the pandemic, natural disasters (Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Michael and severe winter storms), and cyber attacks had already revealed institutional vulnerabilities, limited capacity, and a lack of systems redundancy within Minority Serving Institutions (MSI), particularly HBCUs. The coronavirus pandemic has compounded these and other challenges that these institutions face, including inadequate funding and resources, under-capacity technology systems, and aged physical infrastructure. Further, these events illuminate the struggle of HBCUs to continue to respond, mitigate and recover in the face of ongoing risks and crises.
Previous major and catastrophic disasters have provided valuable lessons and elevated opportunities available to HBCUs, such as:
Even while addressing these immediate concerns, the ability to look ahead to design the new normal of campus – physical assets, admissions/enrollment strategies, development activities, online instruction, etc. are critical. In the response phases of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, city and parish governments had to operate “two governments” – one to continue to manage the extended response and recovery (infrastructure, funding, etc.) and the other to establish a new normal of government operations as the cities and parishes repopulated.
Institutions advance from crisis response when they can recover and build a sustainable, and above all, resilient organization or community. Resilient responses to crisis reflect the capacity of individuals, groups, or entities for creativity and innovation. The recovery efforts following the BP oil spill provides an example. In fact, days before the Macando 252 (2010) oil well was capped, a small team, understanding that “businesses as usual” would not be adequate going forward, worked to design and implement the “next” BP. These efforts became the Gulf Coast Recovery Operation or GCRO.
I applaud the efforts of the Benedict College Risk Management team, now a modified ICS structure activated to navigate the issues related to the coronavirus. This team, not only manages the crisis in front of us, but actively and strategically looks ahead to the future of Benedict College. The capacity to respond to a crisis in a manner like the aforementioned GCRO, represents a scenario in which an organization has access to the resources and funding necessary to build resilience within a system. Risk and Crisis literature finds that an organizations capacity to innovatively respond (resilience) to a crisis can be significantly diminished or eradicated when groups lack resources and are, therefore, unable to act. Most HBCUs do not operate within resource-rich environments thus impacting the ability to build resilient systems.
Within the academy, the dialectic regarding innovation and enterprise positions them as opportunities to transform curricula and learning experiences, as well as to create alternative sources of revenue that can fortify these institutions, especially when they are faced with crisis. Given this, conversations about risk and resilience are necessary and must be prioritized within higher education. HBCUs, as a sector, historically have not been at the forefront of this conversation. This is a missed opportunity for HBCUs and higher education as a whole. As institutions that emerged from the crisis following the Civil War to produce the majority of scholars and professionals of color in the country, HBCUs can offer invaluable insights regarding resilience. Specifically, we would do well to study the types of innovations that George Washington Carver developed and implemented while serving as head of the Department of Agriculture at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in the early 20th Century.
