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Section: Opinion

How to Infuse Trans-Inclusive Housing in Your University-Wide Changes

For colleges and universities that will hold brick-and-mortar classes in the fall, and amidst this unprecedented review of how we keep our students safe in residential life, campuses are presented with the unique opportunity to center trans and non-binary students’ voices in creating new, more inclusive, housing practices. As broad changes on housing are being considered, now is the time to include trans and non-binary students’ experiences in charting a path forward.

July 9, 2020

A Brief History Lesson and Open Letter to the Nation’s Schoolchildren and College Students about White Male Power

Dear Generation Z Students, you are digital natives. So, this letter would better reach you by video, Instagram, Snapchat, maybe Twitter or a hashtag. But I need more letter characters and time than these platforms allow. Please bear with me as you read.

July 9, 2020

Faculty & Staff

Minoritized Senior Faculty in Higher Education, Please Stand Up

Recently, the tenure denials of faculty such as Sibrina Collins at the College of Wooster, Lorgia García-Peña at Harvard University, Paul Harris and Tolu Odumosu at the University of Virginia, and Ashley Woodson at the University of Missouri at Columbia, have reignited a conversation about the role of bias in tenure and promotion processes. But also, the role of tenured senior faculty of color in not only mentoring their junior colleagues, but also working to disrupt and revise these processes. Reimagining these processes in a way that is grounded in equity and justice, we offer a few recommendations.

July 8, 2020

On Slave Patrols, a Pandemic, the NBA, and HBCUs: The Birth of an Historic Alliance?

People from all walks of life, including numerous professional athletes, have been protesting ever since, doing whatever they can to try to affect change. Most notably, several NBA players, whose season has been suspended since March 11, formed a coalition and declared that “Enough is enough.”

July 8, 2020

Leadership & Policy

‘Dramatic Change Will Require Leadership.’ A Message to the Next Generation of Leaders

This summer we have all been living and learning through an unprecedented crisis: literally the greatest disruption to daily life in the United States since at least World War II, a rapid economic collapse that is approaching and may exceed the scale of the Great Depression, deeply inequitable impacts from the crisis mapped into pre-existing inequalities of race and class, and a death count conservatively estimated at more than 500,000 and rising.

July 7, 2020

African-American

The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Revisited in ‘The Sword and The Shield’

As the nation witnesses around-the-clock Black Lives Matter protests, Dr. Peniel E. Joseph’s ‘The Sword and The Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’ could not have been published at a more apropos time.

July 6, 2020

African-American

Proposing a Concept of the Black Tax to Understand the Experiences of Blacks in America

The protests occurring in many cities in America to call attention to the systemic racism in society has provoked us to critically reflect on our experiences as Black men in this country. This cathartic process has led us to believe that as African Americans we are involuntarily mandated to pay a “Black tax.” This term is not new. In fact, it has been primarily associated with a family member who has advanced to a high socioeconomic status and who provides monetary support to other family members. Some have used this term to underscore the ways in which discrimination has impacted the financial standing of African Americans. Our conceptualization of the Black tax differs from the ways it has been used previously.

July 6, 2020

With Every Breath, We Move Forward: Addressing Policing Reforms

In the aftermath of the George Floyd senseless murder by several Minneapolis police officers, protests have erupted in numerous cities both nationally and internationally. What could be different this time as compared to prior protests is that the movement to curb and check police power has reached an inflection point and change is coming. Based on our deep involvement and roles within the local Houston community, we offer suggestions and proposals that are applicable to any police department.

July 3, 2020

How “Different” Will Post-COVID Higher Education Be, Especially for “At-Risk” Students?

How are institutions preparing to deal with access to technology issues? While I can imagine many institutions providing students with laptops, students may encounter barriers to accessing reliable internet or even power for their devices. For residential campuses specifically who will have many students stay home, how do you ensure that your low-income students have access to adequate working space to learn and study?

July 1, 2020

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Asian American Pacific Islander

Stare Down the White Gaze: Demystifying the “Model Minority” Stereotype

“You brought the virus here.” These words were thrown at me on a street corner as I walked my dog, soon after the stay-at-home order was issued. Before I realized that these words were meant for me, the man who uttered them already moved on.

June 30, 2020

How and Where We Exit: Seven Propositions on Black Positionalities in the Pandemics Era

The world has tried to recalibrate after the seismic shift that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacted on key aspects of everyday life, as we once knew it. For certain populations, this shift has been coupled with a cataclysmic jolt. For Black people globally, and specifically for African-Americans in the United States, the battle has been at best—formidable. While the Black gaze focused on the destruction and devastation that COVID-19 was exacting, it was the concomitant spread of a second pandemic, racism, which proved to be just as, if not even more virulent for the Black community.

June 30, 2020

African-American

Do You Hear Me? Language of the Unheard

With protests and outrage sweeping through our nation, we must channel our frustrations into actionable policies and reform. Riots are never a coherent or moral response to injustice. We each have a role to play in the fight against systemic racism, but it is important that we remain unified in our resolve.

June 29, 2020

10 Concrete Policy Changes PWIs Can Enact to Show Black Lives Matter

As senior leaders prepare for the fall semester, I would like to provide 10 concrete policies and practices that could positively impact the institutional climates for their Black populations.

June 25, 2020

African-American

The Peculiar Tenure Denial of Dr. Paul Harris

Just as activists flooded cities across the nation chanting “Black Lives Matter” to express anger, outrage and dismay over the devaluing of Black bodies at the hands of White police and vigilantes, we must also collectively remind institutions of higher learning that “Black Scholars Matter” too.

June 23, 2020

African-American

Protest, Vote and Join that Committee

As our nation comes off weeks of massive protests, many of us are looking for those actionable next steps towards racial equality. For everyone hoping to carry momentum forward to effect change: join a committee.

June 23, 2020

African-American

Our HBCUs Need Additional Congressional Support

As we approach June 30th, a date that marks the end of the annual or biennial fiscal years for forty-six of the nation’s fifty states, governors and state legislatures are being forced to make some extremely tough decisions in order to balance their budgets. If past precedent serves as any guide, we can readily anticipate that higher education will be forced to endure an outsized portion of those cuts and, as a consequence, our largely tuition-dependent, public HBCUs will, inevitably, suffer an even greater hardship from those state funding cuts than better-resourced flagship institutions.

June 22, 2020

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African-American

Our Children are Watching: Teachers, What are Your Non-Verbal Messages Saying to Our Black Students?

Due to racial injustices – profiling in society and in schools – Black caregivers are obligated to train our children to be hyper-observant of their surroundings, and strangers and foes when driving, walking, playing, shopping, dining… in all situations. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a physical reprieve from deficit thinking and alienation in a brick-and-mortar setting, but not visually during online teaching where visuals dominate.

June 21, 2020

Stepping Away from The Brink: COVID-19 Pushed

COVID-19 has exacerbated and accelerated for many colleges and universities the challenges they already faced – rising cost, declining enrollment, not enough financial resources to support the operational structure, and a competitive market – to name a few.

June 21, 2020