Learning from the Experiences of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs)

Learning from the Experiences of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs)

John Hoover

On October 9 I attended a conference in St. Paul entitled Learning and teaching with fire and subtitled Lessons from HCBUs & tribal colleges. The conference was jointly sponsored by Grotto, Target, General Mills, the Cargill Foundation, the United Negro College Fund, the African American Leadership Forum, MIGIZI Communications, St. Paul Indians in Action, and the Center for School Change. The latter organization organized the conference, held at the Wellstone Center in St. Paul.

While all of the conference presentations were excellently informative, in this posting I want to stress the factors from HCBUs that statistically related to the success of African American students from low SES backgrounds. Among these young people, the historically-black universities succeed at rates higher than all other types of institutions except for the most prestigious universities (e.g., Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Cal et al.). 

I wanted to take the approach of pulling apart these findings because both of the morning speakers persuasively argued that there are lessons to be learned from their experiences with implications for secondary and post-secondary schools in Minnesota. I have organized the remainder of the blog entry as a table, with a brief statement of the main points occupying a column, an expansion of the topic in the middle, and references at the end that readers might find useful in their own readings.

The information in this posting was provided by the following experts:

·       Dr. Brian K. Bridges, Vice President of Researcher, and Member Engagement Coordinator, United Negro College Fund

·       Dr. Ivory Toldson, Deputy Director, White House Initiative on HCBUs

Table 1. Findings re HCBUs with implications for SCSU and partner districts.                                     

Finding	Expansion on Principles	References & Resources
HCBUs are extremely successful at retaining African American students	When one controls for SES and high school quality indicators, HCBUs are as successfully retain and graduate African American students, particularly Black males, at rates higher than nearly all other U.S. Institutions. This is true especially in STEM domains; enrolling only about 20% of AA college students, they issue 16% of baccalaureate degrees, while producing 40% of STEM degrees; they train about half of Black teachers, and are among the top 20% of American institutions at sending students on to STEM advanced degrees.	Changing Face of HCBUs See a summary of Bridges’s remarks here Bridges publication 1

Finding	Expansion on Principles/ Implication for SCSU and the Partnership	References & Resources
Relationships, relationships, & more relationships	Research has shown that at HCBUs higher rates and intensities of student-faculty interactions and mentoring occur. These differences have been shown to correspond to the decisions of students to remain in college and to complete degrees. HCBUs hire faculty members with very high expectations regarding the time that they will spend individually with students.	Relations with faculty as social capital Bridges et al. : Piecing together the student success puzzle
Employ intrusive or protective advising	Bridges demonstrated that faculty members participate in what might be called intrusive advising, taking personal responsibility for the success of individual students. While appreciative advising is clearly goal-directed, it also extends to personal relationships with students. Faculty members “intrude” into advisees personal lives more frequently and more intensely than is true at traditional universities. This practice is associated with candidate success.	Bridges et al. : Piecing together the student success puzzle Bridges publication 1 Definitions The appreciative advising revolution (Book)
Promotion of engagement based on culture	Faculty members at HCBUs are expected to remain aware of African American culture and to bring this knowledge differentially to bear on instruction and advising (see intrusive advising above). Several examples from secondary schools could be benchmarked by partner districts including Chicago’s Urban Preparatory Academies, and Knowledge is Power Programs, both of which have successfully build programs around African American cultural patterns. Another often-repeated phrase regarding planning with cultures was “do with us, not to us.” One suspected reason for the relative success of HCBUs was that they build environments where African American students feel supported and comfortable. Can traditional secondary schools and post-secondary institutions create these structures? Both speakers thought this possible—by benchmarking the HCBU practices!	http://www.kipp.org/ http://www.urbanprep.org/ Lessons from HCBUs (2001) Why HCBUs are still important
Moving up by setting high standards and goals	Programs demonstrating the most success with African American boys stress goal setting. For HCBUs, this means expressing frequent and intense expectations for attending graduate school. For secondary schools, this means the same: the communication of intense expectations for college attendance and preparing students and parents by systematically passing along “college knowledge.” Research has shown that high expectations and goal setting for the future produce increments in current performance among all students. Both speakers stressed that better preparation for college is a need in urban high schools in the U.S. This means, for example, more enrollment in college preparatory courses, advanced placement, international baccalaureate, and foreign language courses.	Secretary of Education on HCBUs (2013)
STOP using STEM courses to weed out students RIGHT NOW	Professors at HCBUs do not see mathematics and science courses as ways to weed out students, while Toldson argued that at many traditional universities STEM courses are seen as excessively difficult and as ways to weed students out of high-prestige fields. This has to end if we want to retain students from low SES backgrounds. Since students from HCBUs succeed in graduate schools, this approach has worked. Better teaching and more support, better teaching and more support, better teaching and more support!!!	General comments on STEM: Energy department HCBU partnership

Anyone with an interest in expanding on this conversation, please let me know!