“I felt loved while I was on campus by my professors,” Johnson said. “I felt affirmed. I saw people who looked like me aspiring to complete higher education, and telling me, ‘I want to be a doctor, I want to be an educator or a lawyer.’ ”

Johnson is now looking to make that experience possible for a new generation of students of color, as the founding principal of the first early college high school in New York City inspired by historically Black colleges and universities. HBCU Early College Prep High School, which opened in Queens, New York, in fall 2025, is part of a broader effort to create innovative, community-driven and accelerated high schools designed in the style of HBCUs like Delaware State.

Students will graduate with not only a high school diploma, but also an associate’s degree and a guaranteed spot at Delaware State, founded in 1891 and ranked 10th overall among all HBCUs today. Just as important, they will experience a unique school culture modeled after Delaware State and other HBCUs. In fact, by their junior year students will be taught directly — but remotely — by Delaware State professors for certain courses.

Although New York City is home to more than 100 higher education institutions, it has no HBCUs. In fact, there are none in all of New York state.

“Young people of color just are not being exposed to HBCUs at all,” Johnson said. “We’re not even talking about HBCUs,” whose distinguished list of graduates include former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and actor and producer Samuel L. Jackson, to name a few. “And if we are, we’re either discrediting them, or we’re telling students that they can’t afford it, or they don’t give scholarships — none of which is true.” 

That concern is echoed in UNCF’s recent , which finds that many K–12 students — especially students of color — still lack meaningful exposure to HBCUs. The report underscores the urgent need for clearer, intentional pathways connecting young people to these historically Black institutions.

The new school, and the broader effort to develop HBCU-inspired high schools, is made possible with support from a partnership between UNCF (formerly the United Negro College Fund), the XQ Institute and Transcend, a national nonprofit that helps to design and support innovative schools. This coalition of organizations is also in the early stages of transforming an existing New Orleans public school into an HBCU-inspired, early college high school, with other communities also being explored for such efforts.

“This work only happens because of the strength of the partnership,” said Sarah Navarro, the chief of schools and systems for the XQ Institute. “UNCF brings deep expertise in what makes HBCUs so powerful for student success. Transcend supports and facilitates the design process with communities. XQ ensures the model is built to transform high school — not just launch a single school. 

“Together, we’re not just opening a new campus. We’re building a scalable model for how high schools across the country can connect students to college, culture and opportunity in a lasting way.”

Key hallmarks of HBCU Early College Prep include accelerated coursework, youth voice and choice, real-world learning and a deep connection to the local community.

Students are taking college courses beginning in ninth grade, with teachers receiving training by faculty at Delaware State, said Shawn Rux, a senior executive director in the Office of New School Development & Design at the NYC Department of Education, a key partner of the coalition. Eventually, those students will take virtual classes with Delaware State professors.

“The ‘intentionality around the school design” is key to this enterprise,” said Sekou Biddle, vice president for advocacy at UNCF. As part of the effort, the team asked, “What is it that we know about the HBCU experience that is so catalytic for students? And what if we were intentional about bringing those elements into high school?”

“It’s around [school] culture, it’s around instruction, but then it’s around bringing those principles to life,” Biddle said.

Channeling the ‘HBCU Magic’

To Rux and others, it’s not just the academic challenge; it’s the combination of that rigor with a strong, positive school culture that nurtures students and provides them a thoughtfully designed support system.

“I call it the HBCU magic,” said Rux, a Delaware State alumnus himself.

A valuable resource and reference point for the design of the new school came from a 2020 UNCF report, Biddle said.

“HBCUs are often overlooked as sources of effective methods for producing high-achieving Black students, although their existence is based on this very premise,” the Imparting Wisdom report notes. “HBCUs have been engines for ingenuity, academic excellence and social justice for decades, and the strategies and practices they implement can inform educational practices and systems.”

The report identifies a series of recommendations based on three “best practices” among HBCUs including: cultivating nurturing support systems with a high level of student and faculty interaction; leveraging African American culture and identity; and setting high academic expectations and an intentional college-going culture.

Competition to attend the new public high school was fierce, with some 1,000 applicants for about 100 seats. The school will grow each year, as it progresses from having ninth graders only to eventually a full slate of students in grades 9 through 12.

To apply, students are required to not only submit their academic credentials (including test scores), but also write a short essay about the Amanda Gorman poem, “The Hill We Climb,” and submit a video statement about themselves. While many students in the new class attended other New York City public schools previously, some came from private and parochial schools, according to Johnson.

“Our school is actually bringing students back into the public school system,” she said.

Designed for Belonging

Among those to earn a spot at the new Queens public school are ninth graders Mya Williams and Chance Thomas.

Mya, an aspiring veterinarian, was attracted to the school after hearing about it at a school assembly. Principal Johnson had been visiting middle schools to drum up interest.

“She talked about how we would get an associate’s degree at the end of our four years, and we would get college credits,” Mya said. “And that really caught my attention.”

Both students describe their new school as academically demanding, but also supportive.

According to Chance, the school is cultivating students’ work ethic and valuable skills like time management. “They definitely push us with the workload and the expectations, because a lot of our peers [at other schools] don’t have that,” she said. “Expectations are really high, but our professors [how teachers are referred to] are really supportive.” 

“I think it’s good that we’re challenged,” Mya said. “It’s preparing us for college.”

The two students also highlighted the “house” system, akin in some respects to sororities and fraternities, or to the student houses featured in the Harry Potter books and films, an analogy offered up by Principal Johnson. In fact, HBCU Early College Prep uses a point system like Hogwarts School, with rewards for those that amass the most. But in this case, the houses are named after well-known HBCUs like Spelman College and Howard University.

The experience “builds a sisterhood and brotherhood within those houses,” Chance said.

“Listen to how these students talk about their school. They’re describing rigor and community in the same breath,” said Aylon Samouha, co-founder and CEO of Transcend. “That’s not an accident. That’s the result of intentional design.”

“When students feel like they belong to something meaningful,” Samouha said, “when the adults around them have high expectations and real support structures, engagement stops being something you have to manufacture. It becomes the natural byproduct of a school that was designed with students’ full humanity in mind.”

Coming “home”

It didn’t take long for ninth graders at the new school to experience Delaware State firsthand. In November of last year, HBCU Early College Prep organized a field trip for students over homecoming weekend.

During the visit, the ninth graders toured campus and participated in a pinning ceremony with the college president. Over time, students will have the chance to attend career fairs and other activities at Delaware State, said Kareem McLemore, the university’s vice president for strategic enrollment management and international affairs. And, they will be earning college credits from the institution each year.

The high schoolers also had a chance to meet with upperclass students at an existing early college high school located on the Delaware State campus to better understand the accelerated model.

As part of the model, each student also is paired with a “success coach,” an upperclassman from Delaware State who can provide remote support, including tutoring and personalized academic advising.

As a brand new school with only ninth graders right now, HBCU Early College Prep is still early in its journey. But Principal Johnson, Rux from the city education department and their coalition partners are aiming high:

“We just want to make sure,” Rux said, “that when students walk out that door at the end of their four years, they’re fully prepared to really take on the world.”

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of ����Ӱ��.

For more than a year, he has led an with a group of about 70 educators online to build what’s essentially a chat bot with one job: to guide teachers, step-by-step, through the process of designing their own courses — a privilege previously reserved for just a few instructors at elite institutions. 

The experimental software, dubbed the AI Learning Design Assistant, or , has yet to hit the market. But when it does, Feldstein said, it will be free. With any luck, it could mark a new era, offering teachers at all levels an easy way to design their own homegrown coursework, assessments and even curricula at a fraction of the cost demanded by commercial publishers. Feldstein has worked primarily with college instructors, and his work is widely applicable in higher ed. But it’s got potential in K-12 education as well.

He’s pushing to democratize instructional design, a little-known academic field in which professional designers build courses by working backwards: They interview teachers to help them drill down to what’s important, then create courses based on the findings. 

When it’s ready, he said, ALDA could well shake up the teaching profession, making off-the-shelf AI behave like a personal instructional designer for virtually every teacher who wants one. 

And for the record, Feldstein said, there’s an acute shortage of such designers, so this particular iteration of AI likely won’t put anyone out of a job. 

‘What is this good for?’

Feldstein is well-known in the ed tech community, having worked over the years at Oracle, Cengage Learning and elsewhere. A one-time assistant director of the State University of New York’s Learning Network, he has more recently garnered a wide audience with his — required reading for college instructors and ed tech experts.

Over the past few years, Feldstein has likened tools such as ChatGPT and AI image generators like Midjourney to “toys in both good and bad ways.” They invite people to play and give players the ability to explore what’s basically cutting-edge AI. “It’s fun. And, like all good games, you learn by playing,” he .

But he cautions that when they’re asked to do something specific, they “tend to do weird things” such as return strange results and, on occasion, hallucinate.

As a longtime observer of ed tech, Feldstein’s approach has always been to step back and ask: What is this good for? 

“AI is interesting because there are many possible answers, and those answers change on a monthly basis as the capabilities change,” he said. That makes the question harder to answer. Nevertheless, we need to answer it.” 

ALDA’s focus, he said, has always been on helping participants think more deeply about what teachers do: The AI probes students to find out what they know, then fills in the gaps. 

“As an educator, if I ask you a question, I’m trying to understand if you know something,” he said. “So my question is directly related to a learning objective.” 

By training, teachers naturally modify their questions to help figure out if students have misconceptions. They circle around the topic, offering clues, hints and feedback to help students home in on what they know. But they don’t simply give away the answer.

Over the course of the year, he and colleagues have broken down the various aspects of their work, including what they’d outsource if they had an assistant or “junior learning designer” at their side. 

The AI starts simply, asking “Who are your students? What is your course about? What are the learning goals? What’s your teaching style?” It moves on from there: “What are the learning objectives for this lesson? How do you know when students have achieved those objectives? What are some common misconceptions they have?”

Eventually teachers can begin designing the course and its assessments with a clear focus on goals and, in the end, their own creativity. 

Feldstein holds decidedly modest goals for the project.

“The idea that we’re going to somehow invent a better AI model than these companies that are spending billions of dollars is crazy,” Feldstein said. But making course design accessible “is very doable and very useful.” 

He has intentionally brought together a diverse group of instructors that includes both heavy AI users and skeptics. Among them: Paul Wilson, a longtime professor of religion and philosophy at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. Though Wilson has taught there for 32 years, he has dabbled in AI over the past few years as it reared its head in classes, assignments and faculty meetings. 

He came away from Feldstein’s sessions over the past few months with the outlines of not one but two courses: a world religion survey, which he designed last summer, and a course in pastoral care. The latter, he said, is a “specialty class” for ministers-in-training who are getting their first taste of interacting with congregation members.

“They’re doing field work,” he said, “and this particular class is going to cover the functions they would have if they were serving in pastoral ministry.” 

The course will cover everything from the business of running a congregation to the teaching and counseling duties of a pastor and the “prophetic” role — preaching and teaching the Bible, shepherding the congregation and offering spiritual guidance. 

Wilson said the AI let him tweak the course design in response to test users’ suggestions. “By the end, my experience was that I was working with something valuable,” he said. He is offering the class this semester. 

“I got a very good course design, with all the parameters that I was looking for,” he said. 

Geneva Dampare, director of strategy and operations at the United Negro College Fund, said the organization invited six instructors from five HBCUs to Feldstein’s workshop. Dampare, who has an instructional design background, joined as well. 

Many faculty at these institutions, she said, don’t see AI as the menace that other instructors do. For them, it’s a kind of equalizer at colleges that don’t typically offer a perk like instructional designers. 

But by the end of the process last November, Dampare said, many instructors “could comfortably speak about AI, speak about how they are integrating the ALDA tool into the curriculum development that they’re doing for next semester or future semesters.”

Tuesday’s conversation will focus on how these schools are now serving as incubators for new AI tools and advancements. Joining Curtis Valentine, director of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project, will be Yourway Learning President Jason Green, EdSolutions CEO Jeff Livingston and Morehouse College’s Metaversity Director Dr. Muhsinah Morris. Click here to RSVP

Sign up for the Zoom or tune in to this page Thursday at 3 p.m. ET to stream the event.

More artificial intelligence coverage from ����Ӱ��: 

• Q&A: Khan Academy’s Kristen DiCerbo on the Promise & Limits of AI in Schools — and How It Could Spark a New Era of ‘Conversational’ Testing

• A Cautionary AI Tale: Why IBM’s Dazzling Watson Supercomputer Made a Lousy Tutor
  
• Leanlab Founder Says Ed Tech Should Root Itself in Community Voice, Co-Design

• Artificial Intelligence and Schools: When Tech Makers and Educators Collaborate, AI Doesn’t Have to be Scary
  
• Class Disrupted: How AI is Democratizing Access to Expertise in Education 

Increasing numbers of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are acting as incubators for innovation in the teaching profession, and helping to grow the nation’s Black teacher pipeline.

����Ӱ�� recently partnered with the Progressive Policy Institute for an online panel examining how HBCUs are key contributors to bolstering Black educators.

In the replay below, you’ll hear from experts Katherine Norris of Howard University’s College of Education, Dr. Artesius Miller of Morehouse College and Utopian Academy for the Arts Charter School, Sharif El-Mekki from the Center for Black Teacher Development and ����Ӱ��’s Marianna McMurdock. Watch the full conversation:

Go Deeper: Explore our recent coverage of the teacher workforce below.

• How Black Educators in America’s Fastest-Shrinking City Are Reimagining Teacher Pipelines

• Teacher Prep Programs See ‘Encouraging’ Growth, New Federal Data Reveal

• Breaking Down the Walls to Teaching: Alternative Pipelines Boom

• Preserving Black History Starts with Ensuring There Are Black Teachers

Kadeidra Henderson is a student at Bishop State Community College, in Mobile, Ala. She didn’t initially care much about the history of her institution — originally, higher education wasn’t in her plans.

“I am 25 years old, and I was trying every way possible not to go to college. I didn’t want the student loans. I didn’t want that,” said Henderson.

When it came to deciding whether or not to further her education, Henderson realized that attending a historically Black community college just seven miles from her high school — Davidson High in Mobile — was a viable option.

”When I did a little bit more research, I saw that you get a bit more money for having a Bachelor of Science, and they only have an Associate of Science. So I was like, okay, I’ll just take the first step. It isn’t hard to go ahead and take the first step that leads you to where you are trying to go.”

Henderson serves as Miss Bishop State, a leadership position on campus that involves giving back to the community and uplifting the students. 

Historically Black colleges and universities are such an institution in the United States that they are commonly referred to by an acronym — HBCUs — but it’s a lesser-known fact that two-year programs exist to serve this student population as well. Though the HBCU experience is typically tied to prestigious four-year schools like Howard University, Spelman College, and North Carolina A&T, some say the importance and unique aspects of two-year Black institutions are overlooked.

Historically Black community colleges (HBCCs) are two-year institutions that generally lead to an associate degree. According to , “HBCCs are defined as institutions with a historical mission of serving Black students that predates the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”

H.M. Kuneyl, a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois, researches the history of community colleges and their unique role within the broader landscape of higher education.

Kuneyl spent time at a  earlier in her academic career. While researching, Kuneyl realized that many pieces were missing from the history of HBCCs.

“I’m thinking, well, wait a minute, what does it look like to be an institution that is theoretically open access in a time of the Jim Crow and a time of segregation, where is this story?” she said. “So that is what led me to focus on the history of HBCUs, or what we call them, HBCC, historically Black community colleges.”

 once had 12 Black junior colleges that closed in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Research showed certain shared characteristics for all 12 of these institutions.

“All of these colleges are located in the southern former Confederate states. They were developed and began serving students during segregation, and most of those were actually developed after Brown v. Board of 1954 and 55, so that tells you a lot about why these institutions were built and who they were intended to serve,” Kuneyl said.

“I think the way that I looked at college was completely wrong, but this community college that I started going to made me have a whole different perspective,” Henderson said. “Your education will help you make money rather than lose it, so when I started going to Bishop State, I started getting involved. They have so many different opportunities for you.”

Affordability makes community colleges attractive, and HBCUs can play an important role in helping students shore up their academics before heading to another institution, according to Gregory Price, a professor of economics at the University of New Orleans. 

“Community colleges likely have an advantage in remediating any academic deficiencies. If you’re weak in math and reading, community colleges are probably better able to address those shortfalls. And they can do it at a lower cost because operational expenses are probably lower,” said Price.

According to a , many Black students face barriers when it comes to accessing college and achieving success. These obstacles include insufficient academic readiness, limited access to necessary technology and resources, as well as higher chances of balancing caregiving duties and full-time employment.

“Only 57% of Black students have access to the full range of math and science courses necessary for college , compared to 81% of Asian American students and 71% of white students,” the report reads.

After graduation, Henderson plans on attending Tennessee State University, an HBCU in Nashville, to study dental hygiene. She feels the relationship between Bishop State and other HBCUs in Alabama and surrounding areas isn’t as pronounced as it could be.

“We have so many career fairs at our school, but none of them are HBCUs. We’re close to Alabama A&M, and I never see their table,” she said. “We don’t have the HBCU tables that we need. I think we all have to do our own research on that. Even our advisors, they’re the ones who are looking up HBCUs for us.”

This relates with Kuneyl’s research, which highlights how the historical narrative of education often overlooks the experiences of racially minoritized students, especially in community colleges. 

“There’s a lot of interest in helping racially minoritized students, but there wasn’t a lot of history about the institutions that serve these students. In particular, community college history is often told from a northern white perspective,” said Kuneyl.

Join ����Ӱ�� and the Progressive Policy Institute at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday for an online panel discussing the influence of HBCUs in revolutionizing K-12 education. You’ll hear from leaders Dr. Kathryn Procope, executive director of Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science; Dr. Angela Lang, founder of I Dream Big Charter School at Stillman College; and Dr. Quinhon Scott, executive director of Coppin Academy High School at Coppin University. Curtis Valentine of PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project will moderate. 

or tune in to this page Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET to stream the event.

Recent coverage of K-12 innovation from ����Ӱ��: 

• 189 Innovative School Leaders: Teacher Staffing, AI, Mental Health Top Ed Issues
  
• 40 Years After ‘A Nation At Risk,’ Could Curriculum Reform Finally Move the Needle on Academic Improvement?
  
• Black Education Entrepreneurs — and Parents — Are Pushing the Boundaries of School Choice
  
• National Poll Finds Overwhelming Support Among Black Teachers & Parents for ESAs

Join ����Ӱ�� and the Progressive Policy Institute at 1 p.m. ET Thursday for an online panel examining the role HBCUs can play as charter school authorizers, providing stronger oversight and governance and thus ensuring better educational opportunities for students. You’ll hear from experts Dr. Nina Gilbert of Morehouse College, Dr. Karega Rausch of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and Dr. Evelyn Edney of Delaware State University.

or tune in to this page Thursday at 1 p.m. ET to stream the event.

Minority-serving institutions, or MSIs, are one place to look in order to fix that.

A recent analysis by the found that between 2012 and 2019, the number of prospective teachers completing their preparation programs dropped by 20%. That number recovered slightly in subsequent years, but a state-by-state analysis shows wide variations. Some states, like California and Washington have seen enrollment and completion increase in recent years. Others, like Louisiana and Texas, have seen big declines.

But In states across the country, teacher prep programs in minority-serving institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, are producing higher percentages of completers than non-MSIs.

An analysis of conducted by the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, the organization I lead, found that between 2018 and 2022, minority-serving institutions saw the number of program completers increase by 5.5% on average, across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. Meanwhile, non-MSIs saw an average 0.7% decline.

At the state level, those numbers are even more glaring. In Louisiana, completion at MSI programs rose by 6% over that time period while declining 25% at non-MSIs. In Texas, MSI completion grew by 5% while non-MSI completion dropped by 17%, while Maryland saw an increase of 10% versus a decline of 23%. In Arkansas, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico and South Carolina, the trend was the same.

Headlines are dominated by statistics showing fluctuating and declining enrollment in educator preparation programs, teachers colleges and universities, as well as staffing shortages in schools. But enrollment is an input and staffing shortages a lagging indicator. The percentage of enrollees who actually complete their training — those who are truly prepared to stand and deliver in the classroom — is an essential data point that leaders and policymakers should pay focused attention to.

As a former HBCU school of education dean and the leader of an organization focused on supporting high-quality teacher preparation, my experience tells me MSIs are so successful at this because of their focus on student care and identity.

They, and HBCUs specifically, have seen in recent years. Much of this can be attributed to the political volatility around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion as well as the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down affirmative action in college admissions. In response, Black and brown young people are actively seeking places where they can pursue their education in ways that are empowering and culturally affirming. 

Within MSIs, students are increasingly looking to pathways that enable them to positively impact their communities and students back home. Teaching is rightly viewed by Black and brown educators as a primary means of doing exactly that. A study by Donors Choose and the Center for Black Educator Development found that teachers of color — the majority of whom received their education from MSIs — are far more likely than their white counterparts to to “affirm the racial and ethnic identity of students of color.”

Aspiring teachers at MSIs, then, are engaged in an effort to build something better, to be the transformational teacher that either they were fortunate enough to have or perhaps never had themselves. They see that the route to making change in the public education system is to be part of it: to become educators and improve the system from the inside.

They see themselves as the carriers of the torch, the tellers of a necessary story to foster the development of a sense of agency and a positive cultural identity in students who grew up in circumstances similar to their own. And they learn to do this at schools whose very existence is premised on the belief that their identity is valuable and demands care. 

It is that culture of care, combined with that spirit of possibility and change-making, that has enabled MSI educator preparation programs to excel amid broader declines. These are features of teacher preparation that can exist beyond MSI campuses. Non-MSIs can and should work to create a similar culture of care for their aspiring educators. That means ensuring their preparation program instills a positive sense of their own identity — who teachers are and where they are from can be valuable assets in their vocation. And it means their experience in teacher prep inspires them to work as builders of community and agents of progress in the public schools for the benefit of all students.

Public schools need teachers who are well prepared to deliver the high-quality learning required for a rapidly changing world and who have the cultural competency to teach the full diversity of America’s students.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture Monday announced $33 million in funding to 19 Historically Black Colleges and Universities designated as land-grant institutions to support research and education projects.

The funding through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will support in sustainable farming practices such as reducing use of plastics, enhancing nutritional value in vegetables and addressing shortages in sunflower seed oil.

“The work these universities will take on as a result of this funding have ripple effects far beyond the walls of their laboratories and classrooms,” Agriculture Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small said in a statement.

Torres Small said the investments will help “deliver real-life, applicable solutions to make our food system stronger, while at the same time inspiring a next generation of students and scientists who will help us meet tomorrow’s agricultural challenges.”

1890 Land-Grant Institutions are a byproduct of a Civil War-era law that gave land to dozens of universities, including the HBCUs, but In total, nearly 11 million acres were taken from more than 250 tribes, published in High Country News.

“USDA looks forward to the impact these visionary projects will have in improving the supply of affordable, safe, nutritious and accessible food and agricultural products, while fostering economic development and rural prosperity in America,” NIFA Director Manjit K. Misra said in a statement.

Many of the projects are geared toward sustainable practices in farming. U.S. agriculture contributes to about , and the Biden administration has focused on “climate smart” farming practices.

at North Carolina A&T State University was awarded about $250,000 to conduct farm trials of biodegradable mulches, which would be an alternative to plastic mulch.

Another land-grant university in Wilberforce, Ohio, the , was awarded about $500,000 to explore the use of a perennial flower — meaning it comes back year after year — as a way to improve honey production in order to enhance sustainability practices in agriculture.

And in Nashville, at Tennessee State University was awarded $100,000 to evaluate climate resiliency in legume species, which are crops such as snow peas, chickpeas and lentils, that are crucial to fixing nitrogen into the soil to improve soil health.

A full list of projects can be found , and the 19 land-grant universities sharing in the $33 million include:

Alabama A&M University

Alcorn State University

Central State University

Delaware State University

Florida A&M University

Fort Valley State University

Kentucky State University

Langston University

Lincoln University of Missouri

North Carolina A&T State University

Prairie View A&M University

South Carolina State University

Southern University and A&M College

Tennessee State University

Tuskegee University

University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff

University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Virginia State University

West Virginia State University

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

, R-Gaston, told staff from the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) that he wants to know when efforts to get elementary students on reading level will be successful.

“Tell me that, and I’ll be satisfied,” he said.

Deputy State Superintendent Michael Maher said that was a hard question to answer on the spot.

“That’s a great question,” he said. “I think that’s one we’ll have to get back to you on.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

The question came during a meeting of the that heard presentations on reading, along with a number of other topics, on Nov. 29.

The presentation from DPI was on the , a law that was updated in 2021 to emphasize the use of the science of reading to ensure students in elementary schools can read on grade level by grade three.

The “science of reading” refers to a body of research conducted by reading experts, especially cognitive scientists, on how we learn to read and how we read to learn. According to DPI, it is “evidence-based reading instruction practices that address the acquisition of language, phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling, fluency, vocabulary, oral language, and comprehension that can be differentiated to meet the needs of individual students.”

The data was previously presented and discussed at the and shows gains in literacy since the heart of the pandemic, though students remain behind where they were before the pandemic.

Torbett went on to say that efforts to teach students to read in North Carolina are not new.

“We’ve been talking this for a long long time … I want some assurity … about when do you see a proficient reading at the end of third grade for our kids in North Carolina?” he asked. “If not, then it’s just talk.”

Maher explained that efforts to train teachers in the science of reading are still in early phases. The 2022-23 school year is the first year , according to DPI. Maher said it is likely that results from these efforts will be known when students now in kindergarten reach third grade.

The presentation was just one legislators heard in this meeting, which is coming ahead of the start of the long session in January. Next year’s session will also include the creation of the next two-year budget for the state.

See the full presentation

Schools That Lead

Julie Marks, the director of program evaluation and a senior research associate with the (EPIC), presented an evaluation on

The program came from a 2018 directive from lawmakers that required DPI to contract with Schools That Lead to provide professional development to teachers and administrators in up to 60 schools.

The program’s professional development model focuses, in part, on reducing “early-warning indicators” in elementary schools, reducing the number of ninth graders who are held back, and increasing on-time graduation. The program aims to do this by teaching educators how to design and implement improvement strategies in their schools.

The work in schools was done on a three-year timeline with the aim of ultimately improving student performance.

In all, the program reached 52 schools in 15 districts and charter schools, impacting 30,000 students, most of whom were experiencing poverty.

A case study was given to illustrate how the process works. For instance, a teacher looked at the problem, which was students failing a course. She looked at the data and saw that students had zeros on many assignments, and then she gave students a tool to track the completion of their work. All students subsequently improved their grade, with most bringing their grade up to passing.

The evaluation found an increase in knowledge among educators about “improvement science,” the process the program teaches to help improve situations in schools. It also found that the program gave educators the tools to try to address “barriers to student success.”

The evaluation found that students in schools participating in the program showed marked improvement in both graduation rates and chronic absenteeism.

on Schools That Lead showed the effectiveness of the organization’s approach when it comes to putting students on watch lists if they show early warning indicators.

Marks said that “Schools That Lead is something unique and different,” and ended her presentation with the following quote.

See the presentation on the evaluation

N.C. Promise

Lawmakers also heard about the, which provides dramatically reduced tuition for students at specific universities in the University of North Carolina System.

The program began in 2018 with Elizabeth City State University, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and Western Carolina University. Fayetteville State University will start in the program this fall.

N.C. Promise sets tuition for resident students at $500 a year and tuition for out-of-state students at $2,500.

The following graphic shows changes in enrollment for the colleges over time, taking into account that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted interest for reasons that couldn’t be controlled.

A on Fayetteville State University shows how its inclusion in the program is already showing results for this fall’s attendance.

See the N.C. Promise presentation

Community college organizational assessment and climate survey

Finally, lawmakers heard about an organizational assessment and a climate survey of the community college system, something

Part of the findings of the organizational assessment included challenges facing the community college system.

Burr Sullivan, chair of the State Board of Community Colleges, noted the issues raised by these studies.

“We have some more work to do, but we are on the right track,” he said.

He also noted that he presented the findings to Bill Carver, interim president of the community college system, when he stepped into the role in July for the second time in his lifetime.

While the system continues to search for a permanent new president, Sullivan said the work on making changes based on the findings has to start now.

“The issues that have come out of these surveys can’t wait for the next permanent president,” he said.

See that presentation

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

WASHINGTON — The FBI  that a single minor youth is the main suspect in most racially motivated bomb threats to dozens of Historically Black Colleges and Universities earlier this year that terrorized students.

The FBI in a statement on Monday did not release any further details — only that the individual is under 18 — but said the agency is working with state prosecutors to “hold the minor accountable.”

“Given the federal limitations for charging under-age perpetrators with federal crimes, the Department of Justice worked with state prosecutors to hold them accountable on charges unrelated to the specific threats to the HBCUs,” according to the FBI. “This individual is under restrictions and monitoring of his online activities.”

This youth made bomb threats to those HBCUs between Jan. 4 and Feb. 1, according to the FBI. The threats were decried by HBCU leaders and civil rights leaders at the time.

In February, just before the Southern Poverty Law Center  about the bomb threats made to dozens of historically Black colleges, yet another bomb threat was reported — this one to Spelman College in Georgia.

“This was a racist attack that aims to not only disrupt the start of Black History Month, but the perpetrators, we believe, wanted to send a message that even learning while Black is not safe from hate,” said Lecia Brooks, the chief of staff and culture for the SPLC, at the panel.

“They clearly underestimated the strength of our treasured centers of learning, whose very existence is rooted in resilience.”

In March, an FBI official told a panel of House lawmakers that the agency believed at the time that one juvenile was behind the more than 30 threats made to HBCUs.

Ryan Young, the executive assistant director of the Intelligence Branch at the FBI, said at the hearing that the agency was treating these bomb threats as domestic terrorism and they were the agency’s top priority.

“It’s meant to inflict harm within the African American population,” Young told lawmakers,  to grill federal law enforcement officials as to why those individuals making bomb threats to HBCUs had not yet been caught.

The House and Senate, in a bipartisan vote,  a resolution condemning the bomb threats made to HBCUs and several congressional hearings on the threats to minority institutions have been held.

The FBI said in the Monday statement that it is still investigating two sets of unrelated threats that appear to have originated overseas. One set primarily targeted 19 HBCU institutions from Feb. 8 to March 2. A second series of threats began on June 7, and onward in which more than 250 colleges — including seven HBCUs — and more than 100 high schools and two junior high schools have received either bomb or active shooter threats, or both.

The FBI said this year alone, more than 50 HBCUs, places of worship, “and other faith-based and academic institutions across the country have received racially motivated threats of violence.”

The agency said in its statement: “Hate-fueled and racist threats of violence cause the victims real distress. These threats disrupt the learning environment and the education of college students, as well as other citizens. The FBI will not tolerate anyone trying to instill fear in any community, especially one that has experienced violence and threats of violence historically. The FBI will continue to vigorously pursue anyone responsible for these ongoing threats with help from our law enforcement partners at the federal, state, and local levels.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

As it did in workplaces worldwide, the killing of George Floyd — just a few miles from its offices in Minneapolis — led to deep introspection about diversity and fairness at the Solve advertising agency.

The company was more than 80 percent white, and part of an industry in which Black and Hispanic employees are drastically underrepresented compared to their proportions of the population.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

“It obviously pushed the entire industry to reflect, ‘Are we doing enough?’ ” said Andrew Pautz, a partner in the firm and its director of business development. “And the answer was really no.”

To respond, Solve looked 1,100 miles away, to Baltimore. That’s where it found a historically Black university, or HBCU — Morgan State University — that was willing to team up to create an entry-level course to introduce its students to careers in advertising.

“Advertising isn’t on the radar of diverse candidates when it really counts, when they’re trying to find a career to engage in,” Pautz said. So he and his colleagues asked: “Where is there a high concentration of diverse students? And that’s what brought us to HBCUs.”

It’s not only Solve that has come to this conclusion. So have some of the nation’s largest employers, who are descending on HBCUs to recruit the workers they need to meet diversity promises or expanding collaborations that already existed — often underwriting courses and programs and the technology needed to provide them.

These employers include Google, IBM, Northrop Grumman, Novartis, NBCUniversal, the airlines United, Delta and Southwest, and even the NFL, which teamed up last month with four historically Black medical schools to boost the number of Black team physicians and medical professionals.

“At many HBCUs, the phones have been ringing off the hook,” said David Marshall, professor and chair of the Department of Strategic Communication at Morgan State. “Given that these institutions are producing some of the highest numbers in terms of Black and brown students in some professions, it’s a natural development to come to where the students are.”

About one in 11 Black college students are enrolled in the nation’s 101 HBCUs, which produce more than a quarter of Black graduates with degrees in math, biology and the physical sciences, the National Science Foundation reports, and 50 percent of Black lawyers, 40 percent of Black engineers and 12.5 percent of Black CEOs, according to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

“People who have attended HBCUs, we know the value,” said Cheyenne Boyce, a graduate of historically Black Spelman College and senior manager in the Education Partner Program at the software developer and marketing company HubSpot, which also teams up with HBCUs to find interns and employees. “We’ve always known that. But it does help to have additional external validation.”

No one tracks how many companies are teaming up with HBCUs to find workers. But many such affiliations have been announced over the last two years. There’s been “a significant uptick,” said Marshall, at Morgan State. “It’s been deeper over the last couple of years,” said Lydia Logan, vice president for global education and workforce development and corporate social responsibility at IBM. Added Yeneneh Ketema, university relations diversity program lead at Northrop Grumman: “From what we’ve heard from our campus contacts, yes, there are a lot more companies coming there.”

This expanding pipeline to jobs with top employers could attract more students to HBCUs, whose enrollment overall declined by 15 percent in the 10 years ending 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Education — although about a third of the schools have seen a rebound in response to racist incidents at predominantly white institutions, the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions reports.

“Having companies really be willing to make investments, it benefits the students. It’s great for the parents. It’s great for the universities,” Boyce said.

For HBCU students who are lower-income or the first in their families to go to college, closer relationships with corporate recruiters and mentors also could help offset the advantage long enjoyed by wealthier counterparts who can network their way to jobs.

“I as a rich white kid might have, not just the relationships to get into the door, but also the perspective to know that working at a bank doesn’t just mean being a teller,” said Jeffrey Moss, founder and CEO of Parker Dewey, which helps employers and colleges arrange short-term internships. “Or maybe if my mom or dad works at [the management consulting firm] McKinsey, I could get a job there.

“What’s exciting to see coming out of the HBCUs right now are these opportunities to build real relationships,” Moss said.

That’s because many employers are investing more than an occasional campus recruiting visit. They’re showering HBCUs with technology and other support, mentors and money to help develop talent.

“The old model is, you bring a fancy table to the career fair and you give out brochures,” Marshall said. “The second tier is that there have always been occasional internships. The shift now is looking for more meaningful relationships.”

IBM in May announced that it would underwrite new cybersecurity centers at six HBCUs: Morgan State, Xavier, North Carolina A&T State, South Carolina State, Clark Atlanta and Louisiana’s Southern University System.

HBCUs produce more than a quarter of the Black graduates with degrees in math, biology and the physical sciences and 50 percent of Black lawyers, 40 percent of Black engineers and 12.5 percent of Black CEOs.

In addition to supplying academic content, the company will furnish experts to conduct guest lectures and even simulated hacking events.

“This is our next new big thing with HBCUs,” said Logan, at IBM, which already had a program to recruit students from historically Black schools.

“We’ve had a long commitment to diversity. For other companies it’s newer. For everyone, it’s gotten deeper over the last couple of years,” Logan said.

There’s not only now a social imperative for these companies, but an economic one: a huge demand for workers — not just in cybersecurity, but in other fields that require education in science, technology, engineering and math.

“We have a talent shortage,” Logan said. And “if you’re looking for diverse talent in STEM, it’s a natural fit to recruit from HBCUs.”

Consumers and activists are also pressuring employers to live up to promises that they will diversify their workforces.

“Especially for those companies that are consumer brands, their customers are saying that they want to see something happen,” Marshall said.

In some industries, such expectations can have an immediate and tangible effect on the bottom line. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say their perception of a brand’s diversity through its advertising affects whether they will patronize it, for example, according to a survey by the marketing analytics firm Marketing Charts. More than half of Black respondents said they won’t do business with a company that doesn’t represent Black people in its ads.

“Whether it’s about race or religion or gender, perspective is everything in advertising,” said Pautz, of Solve, whose clients include True Value, American Standard and Rust-oleum. Having a diverse workforce can broaden a company’s perspective, he said. “We have to understand how people think. It’s all about getting into a target audience’s shoes.”

Google’s Grow with Google HBCU Career Readiness Program provides digital education and funding to help expand the pipeline of Black tech workers, who represent only 4.4 percent of Google employees in the United States, even though 13.4 percent of the U.S. population is Black. Last year —facing criticism, including from one of its own former diversity recruiters that it previously didn’t seriously consider Black engineers from HBCUs for jobs — the company’s CEO met with the presidents of five HBCUs. Google has now added a new program called Pathways to Tech to provide those universities with technology resources.

To recruit new airline pilots , fewer than 4 percent of whom are Black and another 14,500 of whom the Bureau of Labor Statistics says will be needed each year through at least the end of this decade, United Airlines has teamed up with historically Black Delaware State University, Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina and Hampton University in Virginia. Delta has formed a partnership with Hampton, too, and Southwest with Texas Southern University in Houston.

The NFL announced last month that it would offer month-long clinical rotations to students from the historically Black Howard University College of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science as a way to increase diversity among NFL physicians, only 5 percent of whom are Black.

“It’s really important for us to have that pipeline” from HBCUs, said Ketema, at Northrop Grumman, which also has collaborations with HBCUs and this fall will hold its fourth annual “HBCU Invitational,” during which it invites students to interview for jobs and participate in workshops and other activities.

It’s important that employers give more than lip service to these partnerships, Ketema’s colleague, Chris Carlson, Northrop’s director of university recruiting, said.

“One thing that we all know from working with HBCUs is the students can truly tell if a company is there to check a box — just showing up at a career fair to collect resumes — or if the company is in it with a school,” Carlson said.

Marshall agreed that the onus is on employers to live up to their diversity goals.

“This is not a story about HBCUs,” he said. “It’s about companies and corporations that are under increased pressure from their stakeholders, their shareholders, their customers saying, ‘You can no longer sit on the sidelines. You’ve got to do something.’ ”

“I don’t think the burden is on the HBCU side. I think the burden is on the corporations that suddenly woke up and found Jesus.”

In the meantime, HBCUs are indisputably enjoying a surge of employer interest.

“It’s great for HBCUs to get this attention,” said IBM’s Logan. “For a long time I think they were overlooked and now they’re getting the recognition they’ve always deserved.”

This story about was produced by , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and published in partnership with the .��

The U.S. Department of Education, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, made the announcement in , saying the department will work with HBCUs that have been stricken by bomb threats, to provide mental health resources, enhanced campus security and other measures.

The grant awards range from $50,000 to $150,000 per institution.

Under a program called Project SERV, short-term funding is provided to higher education institutions that “have experienced a violent or traumatic incident,” according to the press release from the U.S. Department of Education.

In Florida, two private HBCUs were placed on lockdowns due to bomb threats in February, during Black History Month. Those schools are Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach and Edward Waters University in Jacksonville. Both could apply for the federal grants.

Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers approved millions in the 2022-23 state budget for the private institutions affected by bomb threats as well as another private HBCU private school. The Florida Legislative Black Caucus, during the 2022 legislative session, included continued funding for all HBCUs, as by the Florida Phoenix.

For instance, Bethune-Cookman University would receive nearly $16.9 million for “student access and retention,” while Edward Waters University would receive $6.4 million for the same services. However, Gov. Ron DeSantis must approve the final state budget and he has the authority to veto components of it.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a written statement:

“The recent bomb threats experienced by HBCUs have shaken students and fractured their sense of safety and belonging, which are critical to their academic success and wellbeing. We, at the Department of Education, recognize how these threats evoke a painful history of violence against Black Americans in this country that is especially traumatizing to HBCU students, faculty, and staff.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Hours before the Southern Poverty Law Center held a virtual panel Tuesday about recent bomb threats made to dozens of historically Black colleges, yet another bomb threat was reported — this one to Spelman College, a historically Black institution in Georgia.

“This was a racist attack that aims to not only disrupt the start of Black History Month, but the perpetrators, we believe, wanted to send a message that even learning while Black is not safe from hate,” said Lecia Brooks, the chief of staff and culture for the SPLC. None of the threats came to HBCUs in Virginia, according to news reports.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

“They clearly underestimated the strength of our treasured centers of learning, whose very existence is rooted in resilience.”

Leaders from five historically Black colleges and universities and an official with the U.S. Department of Education discussed how coordination between the institutions and the federal government could help protect students, faculty and the communities around those campuses. Nearly 20 HBCUs received bomb threats in the past weeks, with more than a dozen on Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month.

The FBI is  the bomb threats made to HBCU institutions as hate crimes.

Michelle Asha Cooper, the acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Education, said that the department was working with the Justice Department, FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate the threats.

“These threats are reminiscent of the civil rights era,” she said. “Bomb threats against Black people is an unfortunate part of America’s history.”

Multiple media outlets have  that the FBI has identified six juveniles of interest in the calls made to HBCUs.

Zachary Faison Jr., the president of Edward Waters University in Florida, said that he was concerned to learn that the threats could stem from young people, and added that he’s worried that children are not properly being taught about the history of racism in America.

“When I thought about young people, I’m thinking about people that don’t really understand or appreciate the historicity and the pains to African Americans in this country, particularly historically Black colleges and universities,” he said.

Brooks agreed and said that “we are seeing this more and more from our elected officials at the highest level, and those responses from our elected officials are having an impact on young people.”

Republicans at the state and congressional level have introduced or passed legislation to ban the teachings of critical race theory, an academic subject in higher education that has been around since the 1970s that looks at how race and law intersect. It’s not a subject taught in public schools.

Felecia Nave, the president of Alcorn State University in Mississippi, said that following the threats, her priority was students’ well-being.

“I’m extremely saddened for our students who continue to be traumatized, in what is truly unprecedented times,” she said.

Nave said that when she talked to students, she also talked to them about solutions and how they can help their community.

“They are disappointed, they are traumatized,” she said. “They’re resilient, and they are resolved to continue to move forward and to make it known that we won’t be threatened.”

She said they talked about voting rights and how it’s a constant struggle to fight for the right to vote and how important it is to educate people in their community about when certain legislation comes up, such as critical race theory.

“They’re being that next generation of civil rights leaders that our community is gonna need,” she said.

Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University in Louisiana, said that while his university has not yet received a bomb threat, the institution is no stranger to racist threats.

“I think that this has been a wake-up call for us,” he said. “Let’s lean into the history and deal with those issues and then say, how do we learn from that and apply it in this new context?”

Those institutions that received bomb threats include:

• Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C.
• Bethune-Cookman University and Edward Waters University in Florida
• Albany State University, Fort Valley State University and Spelman College in Georgia
• Southern University and A&M College and Xavier University in Louisiana
• Bowie State University and Coppin State University in Maryland
• Philander Smith College in Arkansas
• Delaware State University in Delaware
• Kentucky State University  in Kentucky
• Alcorn State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi Valley State University and Tougaloo College in Mississippi

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Robert Zullo for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on and .

The sit-in began after returning students reported and maintenance issues this fall. Howard confirmed 34 instances of “suspected fungal growth.” University officials noted the affected under 1 percent of on-campus dorm rooms.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

Howard also instituted a $2,000 tuition hike this school year, to $28,000.�� 

Compounded with the removal of student trustee representatives and , frustration turned into mass action earlier this month when students occupied the Blackburn Student Center, hanging painted banners reading “enough is enough.”

Tensions further heightened between students and the university administration last weekend; as thousands attended the , campus police closed entry to the Blackburn student center, which had been occupied in protest for 11 days.��

in the rush to secure the building.��

In a , University President Wayne Frederick called for an end to the protests, citing his ongoing conversations with key activists regarding demands and referencing the University’s existing, multi-year .��

“There is a distinct difference between peaceful protest and freedom of expression and the occupation of a University building that impedes operations and access to essential services and creates health and safety risks,” Frederick’s statement read. “The .” 

students have no intention of ending the sit-in at this time.

Protests continued throughout the campus’s highly anticipated in-person — a celebrated multi-day welcome event featuring musicians, performers and alumni. with rapper Gucci Mane’s label refused to perform, standing in solidarity with protesters.��

“This whole week we’re supposed to be coming together and being energetic and it’s like, it doesn’t feel right to be a part of that when there are still students without housing, and still students suffering in the housing that they do have,” an anonymous , Howard’s student newspaper.

Mold remediation teams have been dispatched to student rooms, yet social media accounts suggested the issue may be more pervasive: Hallways, showers, carpets and air ducts appear lined with mold, according to student Twitter accounts where they also at night.

An associate professor tweeted that one of his students was diagnosed with “.”

At least four of Howard’s main residence facilities are , a company that partners with public institutions, including the University System of Georgia and U.S. military bases, to renovate and manage infrastructure.��

Student reports of black mold and unsafe living conditions parallel the experience of military families living in Corvias-run housing; several in Fort Bragg, North Carolina are in a class-action suit.��

In 2020, to Corvias CEO John Picerne requesting information on how they may have “put profits above public health” and influenced universities’ return plans during the pandemic.��

Student activists demand an in-person town hall with President Frederick before November; the reinstatement of student, faculty and alumni affiliate positions on the board of trustees; legal and academic immunity for protesters; and a meeting between student leaders, Frederick and chair of the board to hear their housing plans for incoming classes “because .”

Howard’s Board of Trustees removed affiliate representatives in June. Since protests began earlier this month, the faculty senate has voted to collaborate with students and alumni to reinstate these positions, which they describe as a “.” 

Frederick agreed to students’ final demand, meeting student leaders to discuss housing policy, . He rejected their request for a town hall, saying  multiple times he felt uncomfortable with the idea, suggesting instead biweekly meetings with student representatives.��

https://twitter.com/Chan_the_world/status/1451303276432044045

“I am a Black girl at a Black college. I came here to this HBCU to escape the oppression of the world, and here I am being physically hurt at a peaceful protest. The chaos has been created by the administration,” , reflecting on the altercation during a student-led press conference on Oct. 24. “Our demands are not demanding,” she added.��

Over a week has passed without further action since Board president and alumnus Larry Morse on the ongoing sit-in, where he pledged a commitment to hearing student voices but did not offer a timeline or specific action regarding future living accommodations.��

“We know we have a gap to bridge in order to meet your expectations and ours. While we may have closed the gap in several areas, challenges remain,” the statement reads.

The board did commit to including student representatives for one-year positions, but did not specify any long-term representation or whether faculty positions would be reinstated.

As temperatures dip to 48 degrees in Washington, D.C., students continue to sleep in tents surrounding Blackburn on “The Yard” in central campus. Many have dubbed the area “”, to remain until needs are met.��

����Ӱ�� has compiled student, alumni and community accounts of living conditions and the #BlackburnTakeover:

This is Howard

Reply to @babyace2002 they publicly said they support protesting but email their students saying they would be EXPELLED.

https://twitter.com/dereckapurnell/status/1450899700643553292?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1450899700643553292%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2021%2F10%2F22%2F1048517681%2Fstudents-at-howard-university-are-protesting-poor-housing-conditions-on-campus

https://twitter.com/revwendy3/status/1452365649435627528