Today’s African-American students can attend college anywhere that their grades, talents, and interests will take them. Increasingly, they’re looking at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) because they want the unique experience that only such institutions offer. In fact, the last few years have seen a resurgence in HBCU enrollment, comments Lori Wright, Coordinator of Multicultural Student Recruitment at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. In that capacity, she talks to many African-American high school students. Often they tell her they are considering HBCUs not so much because of racial issues, but because they want to share in their cultural heritage with students like themselves.
Links to their legacy
According to Antoine M. Garibaldi, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a majority of African-American students today attend high schools where they are in the minority and are used to excelling in that environment. For them, an HBCU or traditionally white institution are both viable choices. But Garibaldi, who is a Howard graduate himself and has been involved in higher education for the last twenty years, hears that they came there because many want to spend four years in a college environment that is predominantly black, even though they’re comfortable in primarily white surroundings.
Nabulungi Mack-Williams agrees. Having lived all over the United States with her parents, who are college professors, she is used to quickly adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings, most of them predominantly white. Though attending an HBCU was a lifelong dream for her, she applied to a diverse range of schools, from ivy league to HBCUs to southern institutions.
There were many reasons why she chose Spelman College in Atlanta, but a primary motivation was the knowledge that she’d be surrounded by people of her own culture who were successful in their fields. On a more personal level, she likes the family closeness that Spelman gives her. Reflecting on her years there, she says she particularly enjoys being able to relate to financial aid advisers and professors as if they were wise aunts and uncles.
Reasons of the heart
“Being an HBCU student is a deeply emotional experience,” reflects Michael Tapscott, Director of the Office of Minority Student Affairs at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. “For many black students who went to a majority high school and then come to an HBCU, it’s a real awakening.”
Janice L. Nicholson, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at Howard and a Howard graduate, recalls a conversation she had with a young man who told her he hadn’t realized there were so many people of color who were so talented. He came from Canada, and so was always regarded as the solitary example of what blacks could do. “When he came to Howard, he found lots of others like himself,” Nicholson says. Juliet Johnson, Interim Director of Admissions and Orientation Services at Spelman College, remembers how important it was for her to have African-American professors at the HBCU she attended because looking at them, she was seeing her future.
Mentors all along the way
The connections that students make with their professors is part of the extensive mentoring facilitated by HBCUs. This, says Garibaldi, is a factor in the high percentage of HBCU graduates who go on for their doctorates. Students see role models all around them and know that faculty members will assist them to get internships and prepare them for careers, Garibaldi elaborates.
Citing an example of how simple this mentoring can be yet how profound an effect it can have on a student’s future, Nicholson tells another anecdote of a young woman at Howard who got a C as a final grade. Her professor didn’t let her off the hook, but told her he knew she could do better because he’d seen her quiz scores. His assumption was that she would succeed rather than fail. “That kind of expectation leads to students who are more confident,” Nicholson says.
The heritage endures
Some students come from families where several generations are HBCU graduates, which, Thandabantu B. Maceo, Director of Admissions and Interim Financial Aid Director at Central State University, reports is often a big incentive for young people to want to experience an HBCU for themselves. “They see the value in continuing the tradition. There’s a feeling of pride and association with an institution that your own people created and helped develop. They know there’s a rich fraternal presence at HBCUs that can’t be experienced on a traditionally white campus,” says Maceo. Nicholson notes the sense of ownership that HBCU students have of their institutions and pointedly asks, “Are there African Americans who believe Harvard belongs to them? Quite frankly, more believe that Howard belongs to them.”
Concludes Frank Matthews, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Black Issues in Higher Education, “HBCUs must continue to be a viable option for us. But that’s not the only reason for their existence. They must continue to exist because they’re good.”