Actor and Howard University graduate Taraji P. Henson and former head of the NBA Players Association and NBA star Chris Paul are among the more than a dozen top education leaders, celebrities and athletes President Joe Biden announced he is appointing to his board of advisers on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the White House said.
The presidents of five HBCUs – Alabama State University, Virginia State University, Norfolk State University in Virginia, Dillard University in New Orleans and Prairie View A&M University in Texas – have also been appointed to the board.
Biden’s move comes weeks after his administration touted a $2.7 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan that was provided to HBCUs over the past year and as HBCUs continue working to keep campuses safe after dozens received bomb threats in recent months.
The group is made of “qualified and diverse leaders” and appointing them to the board “will allow the administration to build on that financial commitment with continued institutional support,” the White House said.
HBCUs affected by recent bomb threats will be eligible for federal security grants, as more support for HBCUs has part of Biden’s domestic policy agenda since he ran for president. Last year, Biden proposed increased funding for HBCUs but his full proposal was not passed by Congress.
City University of New York‘s board of trustees recently voted to appoint two African American scholars to lead colleges in the university system, according to jbhe.com.
Berenecea Johnson Eanes was appointed president of York College of the City University of New York. She has worked as interim president there since last fall.
York College, located in Jamaica, Queens, enrolls nearly 8,500 undergraduate students, according to the latest data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. African Americans make up 38 percent of the student body.
Dr. Eanes has previously served as vice president for the Division of Student Affairs at California State University, Fullerton and had been on the staff at Cal State Fullerton for seven years.
Dr. Eanes is a graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans. She earned a master’s degree at Boston University and a Ph.D. in social work at Clark Atlanta University.
Anthony E. Munroe will be president of Borough of Manhattan Community College, effective October 1.
Since 2017, Dr. Munroe has been president of Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. He was previously president of Malcolm X College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago system.
Borough of Manhattan Community College is the largest in the CUNY system with more than 25,000 students, according to the latest U.S. Department of Education statistics. African Americans make up 27 percent of the student body.
Dr. Munroe is a graduate of Regents College of New York. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and earned an MA in public health and a Ph.D in health education from Columbia University in New York.
According to USA TODAY, technology investor and entrepreneur Arlan Hamilton is funding a brand new scholarship for black undergraduate students at Oxford University in the U.K., a first for the world-renown educational institution.
To quote the article:
The scholarship, partly named for Hamilton’s mother, will cover fees and living costs for one undergraduate student a year for three years beginning in 2020. The value of the scholarship fund is about £220,000 (or nearly $300,000), Oxford said.
Hamilton is a former music tour manager without a college degree who bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco with the goal of backing underrepresented entrepreneurs. She was so broke that she met with tech investors by day and slept on the floor of the San Francisco airport at night until one of them cut her a check.
Today she runs Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm that backs women, minority and LGBTQ founders who are overlooked by Silicon Valley and reflects Hamilton’s determination to overcome the complex set of biases and barriers that begin in preschool and persist in the workplace that keep women and people of color from gaining equal access to some of the nation’s highest-paying jobs.
According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a new report from the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University in New Jersey has found that Historically Black Colleges and Universities are doing a terrific job fostering the upward mobility of their students, especially considering a significant share of their students that come from lower-income backgrounds.
The study also found that HBCUs are furthering upward mobility of their student population, which is drawn from the lower economic rungs, than the general college-going population at predominately White institutions.
A key finding of the report is that despite the fact that nearly 70 percent of students at HBCUs attain at least middle-class incomes after graduation. Two-thirds of low-income students at HBCUs end up in at least the middle class.
The report also identified HBCUs that are doing a particularly good job of having their graduates move up the ladder of economic success. For instance, 16.7 percent of the student body at Xavier University of Louisiana is low-income and almost one-third of these students move into the top fifth of income earners.
Tuskegee University, Bennett College, Florida A&M University, Dillard University, and Clark Atlanta University also do a particularly good job fostering upward mobility for their large share of low-income students.
The full report, Income Mobility at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, can be downloaded here.
(L to R) Dillard University’s associate admissions director Christopher Stewart and Zariah Nolan, Whitehaven High School senior and future Dillard University Student, taken from Nolan’s Twitter on April 24, 2017. (photo via colorlines.com) article by Sameer Rao via colorlines.com
Seniors at an almost-exclusively Black high school in Memphis, Tennessee, earned more than $80 million in university scholarship offers.
ABC News reported Friday (April 21) that more than 40 Whitehaven High School students contributed to this number with at least $1 million in offers each. A call to determine the total number of students who earned scholarships was not immediately returned. Per the Tennessee Department of Education’s website, Whitehaven’s student body is more than 99 percent Black.
One student, 18-year-old Zariah Nolan, earned nearly $9.6 million in scholarships, including 17 full-ride packages. Nolan told ABC News that she applied to nearly 100 colleges across the country using application packages like the Common Black College Application, which allows prospective students to submit to 51 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) with one set of materials.
She will attend one of those HBCUs, Dillard University in New Orleans, this fall. “My principal always told us you never know where life can take you so apply anywhere just to see,” Nolan said. Her principal, Vincent J. Hunter, added that the 1,765 student-strong high school stands out thanks to its all-alumni staff. “It’s important for us to be our brother’s keeper and we work hard to make sure our kids are prepared for life after graduation,” says Hunter, who also attended Whitehaven. Source: Memphis High School’s Graduating Class Earns $80 Million in Scholarships | Colorlines
Kiki Baker Barnes (photo via gcaconf.com) Kiki Baker Barnes was chosen as the 2015 Administrator of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Directors. Since 2006, Dr. Barnes has been the director of athletics at Dillard University in New Orleans.
Dr. Barnes also serves as president of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. She is currently conducting research on the relationship between coach’s influence, student engagement, and student-athlete success.
“Dr. Barnes is not just a leader at Dillard,” said Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University. “She is a leader for our conference and for athletics nationally. Her energy and initiative have been great, and we are proud of her accomplishments.”
Dr. Barnes holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of New Orleans. She also earned a master’s degree in communication and media studies at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. article via jbhe.com
Dillard University Board of Trustees Member MC Lyte (photo via eurweb.com)
Philanthropist, rapper and hip-hop pioneer MC Lyte has taken her community involvement to new heights, as she now sits on the board of trustees for Dillard University in New Orleans.
Through herHip Hop Sisters Foundation, Lyte had previously providedcollege scholarships to four young women, and this time around, sought to take on a different mission, encouraging black men to pursue their education through the organizations signature initiative, “Educate Our Men,” (#EducateOurMen) born within Dillard.
“More than just a necessity, given the percentages of men to women at Dillard, immediately we just thought how can we raise the awareness of the education to be had at an HBCU [which] is like none other,” said Lyte.
According to Dr. Walter Kimbrough, President of Dillard University, what began a simple meeting of the minds turned into a full fledged opportunity for Lyte to leverage her renowned platform, and implement change on Dillard’s campus.
Dr. Kimbrough passionately shares how he and Lyte’s partnership began.
“Last April MC Lyte’s foundation president, Lynn Richardson, reached out and said MC Lyte wanted to meet with me. I told her okay, let me know what her schedule looks like and I will come out. She said no, we’re coming to you. So they came and indicated that MC Lyte wanted to do something with HBCUs, and has done a scholarship in the past (U. of Wisconsin). So, the idea was to do scholarships for young men to attend Dillard, explains Dr. Kimbrough, “A pleasant surprise. But we kept talking and they wanted to be more involved in Dillard. So we ended up talking about doing a course- I Cram to Understand: Hip Hop, Sex, Gender and Ethical Behavior. It was already on the books at Dillard (minus hip hop) so we just refreshed it. She came and did an open lecture for the campus plus a special session for the class.”
Lyte lectured the course at no costs to the university and stayed in touch with Dr. Kimbrough after the lecture to further discuss the schools needs and how she and her platform may be of assistance.
“Because of her sincere interest, we thought it would be great to have her be part of the board of trustees, said Kimbrough, “ It will be a new experience for her, and I think a good one to learn more about higher education, and she has a platform that can benefit Dillard.”
Lyte speaks highly of Dr. Kimbrough’s sincere passion as well, and both seem excited for the fruits of their blossoming partnership.
“He’s [Dr. Kimbrough’s] always had a really great relationship with hip hop in general, with the culture and a mass amount of respect for what it is that we do, said Lyte,“It feels like a natural collaboration.”
Through this particular initiative with Dillard, the two, are seeking to bring male enrollment numbers up and improve learning outcomes. Lyte believes Dr. Kimbrough’s moxie and dynamic understanding for the #EducateOurMen cause, makes Dillard the perfect inaugural home for the initiative.
MC Lyte and Denzel Washington at Dillard University (photo via eurweb.com)
“For me, there is no other school to do it with but, Dillard,” said Lyte, “Education gives one opportunity, gives an outlook and allows someone to dream of something better– of making their circumstances better, of providing for their families and providing for their children.”
Lyte explained her reason for becoming an artist was always to inspire others and to use any influence gained along the way to shine light on issues that deserved acknowledgment– and hopefully with the help of Dr. Kimbrough, and Dillard University, they will do just that, for a community of people, who Lyte believes, have been overlooked.
Recently, she oversaw the 2015 graduation where acclaimed actor Denzel Washington was the commencement speaker and received an honorary degree. article by Brittany Dandy via blackenterprise.com (additions via eurweb.com)
ATLANTA – A popular and influential collection of artwork featuring African leaders and rulers has returned for public viewing at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Valued at more than $1 million, “The Great Kings and Queens of Africa” collection of paintings was commissioned by Anheuser-Busch in 1975. Today, the company announced it has donated the entire collection to UNCF (United Negro College Fund), the country’s largest minority education organization, which will distribute pieces from the collection to six UNCF member colleges and universities: Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Fisk University, Xavier University, Dillard University and Benedict College.
