CONNECT . MOTIVATE . INSPIRE .
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS, AND STUDENT SUCCESS IS AT THE HEART OF HBCU s
BY LYNITA MITCHELL-BLACKWELL, ESQ.
“A comprehensive type of college more than any other lives up to the promise of social mobility: historically Black colleges and universities.” Home is where the heart is, and HBCUs know how to take care of its heart, i.e., their students. report by Goldman Sachs found one For over 200 years HBCUs have been the primary educator of the descendants of Africans in America. Our description has changed several times: Negro, Colored, Black, African American, BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color); but the heart of who we are remains the same - a people committed to excellence in education and social mobility for the betterment of all in our community.
Our HBCUs understand that mission better than most. Our schools award more than 45% of bachelor’s degrees to African Americans in the entire country, yet only receive a fourth of available funding of all educational institutions. It has only been recently that legislatures around the country have begun to redress that wrong by including in their budgets amounts that had been purposefully withheld from the schools and/or diverted to PWIs. Critically needed funding will go a long way to address many of the issues that our schools face, particularly when it comes to the maintenance of our infrastructure, improvement in library resources, and reduction in student-teacher ratios.
excellence. HBCUs continue to be the number one graduate of Black STEM based professionals. We continue to uphold the traditions of legacy, with many of our children and grandchildren attending our alma maters (and to our chagrin, sometimes our rivals). We speak positively of our schools and represent wherever we go (there is not a time or place when I am not thrilled to hear someone say, “Strike Rattler!” and I respond in kind with the fangs). Educator Teshia Dula agrees. Ms. Dula is a two- time graduate of Hampton University, receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1995 and master’s degree in 1997. She is the 2020 Georgia School Counselor of the Year and top five finalist for the 2022 National Counselor of the Year, a doctoral candidate college professor,
and award-winning author of two books - STEAM for the School Counselor and More STEAM for the School Counselor for which she won the Gwinnett County Public Schools Counselor Writer of the Year. And she did this as a wife and mom of three. Talk about excellence! “Texas Southern University is special in my family as it is where my parents met. When I was young, they would captivate me with fascinating tales about the university, its vibrant campus life, and the influential organizations known as The Divine Nine. In high school, a popular television show called ‘A Different World’ further fueled my fascination. I was under the impression that Hillman College from the show was inspired by Hampton University, and the idea of attending there
Yet in spite of these challenges, our schools continue to produce
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