This chapter highlights the challenges that confront HBCUs in enhancement of student success and reduction of the achievement gap among Black students. There is also a focus on institution-centric factors related to administrative structure, leadership, governance, accountability and transparency, management of external relationships with stakeholders, internal culture and politics, among others. HBCU leaderships and stakeholders must implement fundamental changes to remain relevant and survive.
TopIntroduction
This chapter explores the role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the education of marginalized populations in the United States particularly African Americans. HBCUs are historic institutions most of which were founded after the American Civil War (1861-1865), even though a few were founded prior to the War, including Cheyney University of Pennsylvania (about 1837), Ashmun Institute in Philadelphia (1854), which later became Lincoln University in 1866, and Wilberforce University, Ohio (1856). HBCUs that were founded after the war included Atlanta University (1865) now called Clark Atlanta University, Fisk University (1866), Howard University (1867), Morehouse College (1867), originally called the Augusta Institute, among others.
These institutions attained legal recognition and status – and some form of financial support –through congressional action. In1862 Congress passed the Morrill Land-Grant College Act, popularly called the Land-Grant Act, which provided grants of land to states to finance the establishment of colleges specializing in agriculture and the mechanic arts (Library of Congress, n.d.). Between the 1860s and 1890, some 200 HBCUs were established (Arroyo & Gasman, 2014; Gasman, 2007; Brown & Davis, 2001). As of today, they number 105 and represent about 3% of American postsecondary schools.
The Morrill Land-Grant Act was amended in 1890. It became popularly known as the second Morrill Act and specified that states using federal land-grant funds must either make their schools open to both blacks and whites or allocate money for the establishment of segregated black colleges to serve as an alternative to white schools. The 1890 Act resulted in the establishment of a few more predominantly African American colleges and some American Indian colleges. It also provided for regular Congressional appropriations that not only supported but also breathed a new lease of life into the land-grant colleges (Library of Congress, n.d.).