Dr. Ivory A. Toldson delivered keynote at the Higher Education Leadership Foundation's Ideation, Innovation, and Collaboration summit.
Speaking at the Ideation, Innovation and Collaboration summit sponsored by the Higher Education Leadership Foundation (H.E.L.F) at Claflin University, Toldson, a professor of counseling psychology at Howard University, urged HBCUs to break free from imitating Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and instead create their own innovative research paradigms that authentically serve Black communities.
"HBCUs have to be leaders. HBCUs have to advance and innovate, and most importantly, HBCUs can't look at predominantly white institutions as models of what we should be.”
Toldson's impressive journey as an "HBCU researcher" began in high school when he conducted research at Southern University. He recounted a pivotal encounter with his high school English teacher who, on his graduation day, gripped his shoulders and said, "Ivory, I'm so proud of you. You're going to be something great if you just get rid of your anger."
This comment came after Toldson had challenged her rejection of his chosen research topic: "Why the Miseducation of the Negro is still relevant to our experiences today." Similar tensions arose when he later chose to research how the FBI suppressed Black Power movements in the 1960s and 1970s.
These early experiences foreshadowed some of the challenges he would face in academia. After completing his dissertation on Black men in the criminal justice system and submitting a portion to a top-tier journal, Toldson received a rejection that described his research as "needlessly contentious and emotionally loaded."
This feedback prompted deep reflection on how academia views objectivity in research, particularly when researchers share backgrounds with their subjects. In his keynote address, Toldson referenced Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, who once said, "One could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes are being murdered and starved."
