Several HBCU presidents and leaders
Titled “Ideation, Innovation, & Collaboration: The Future of HBCUs,” the convening will tackle what self-agency and sustainability at HBCUs can look like.
The Higher Education Leadership Foundation (HELF), which focuses on fortifying HBCU leadership, organized the convening in response to the greater national attention on HBCUs yet the existential pressures that many still face.
“I think now is an inflection point for HBCUs just as America and, quite frankly, the globe has been dealing with the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic,” said Dr. Herman J. Felton, president of Wiley College, a private HBCU in Texas, and co-founder of HELF. “This moment brings into focus how acutely fragile things are, can be, and will be—and to that end, you begin to think how our institutions will be prepared for the next chapter in their lives.”
For Felton, the idea to organize this convening came after learning HBCUs received almost a billion dollars in private funding since 2020. But the vast majority of those funds went to just about a dozen HBCUs despite the more than 100 HBCUs that are educating some of the country's most underserved students.
“It made me think about the other HBCUs who have not been in a position to receive gifts, be they transformational or supportive, and I juxtaposed that with the public perception that all HBCUs have had a windfall recently—when the reality is that they haven’t,” said Felton. “And the other reality is that none of us is really safe with the decline in state funding for our institutions and the enrollment cliff. Kids are simply just choosing not to go to college.”
He noted that the purpose of the convening is to amplify such conversations in the HBCU community.
