CONNECT . MOTIVATE . INSPIRE .
B owie State University has been aggressively growing programs and facilities at its suburban Prince George’s County location with its president, Dr. Aminta H. Breaux, laserfocused on innovation. Positioning Bowie State as an Innovation Hub is the center piece for the university’s vision and master plan to put Bowie State - Maryland’s oldest HBCU – on the global map. “We want to bring together the community with the university as an anchor institution to ensure that we are utilizing our resources for the greater public good,” said Breaux, the university’s first female president. “We are focused on revitalizing the economy throughout this region.” The campus is following the model of many prestigious universities that foster collaboration between academia, industry, and the community. Bowie State has significantly more land to work with than many universities with the campus spread across 337 acres. One of the university’s goals is to develop its land and develop more connections to the larger Bowie, Maryland,
government agency partners to the niversity and region to conduct research and provide services that will benefit the larger community. “We are creating an ecosystem where there’s a win - win for those agencies and companies,” said Breaux. “We want to create a pipeline that becomes this cycle of innovation.” The Innovation Hub plan will build on what is already going on at Bowie State. Forming connections to the community has already been happening on campus in spaces like the Entrepreneurship Living Learning Community, a new $42 million facility that opened on campus in 2021 that helps bridge learning from the classroom into the real world. The 550- bed residence hall adjoins a dedicated Entrepreneurship Innovation Center (EIC) with resources, mentors and equipment to support students’ entrepreneurial development. Housed within the BSU Entrepreneurship Innovation Center is the Bowie Business Innovation Center (BIC), a separate 501C3 which provides resources including workshops, training and educational programs, bringing investment to small start-up businesses in the community. It’s the only business accelerator in Maryland located on an HBCU campus. “We’re bringing those small minority-owned businesses to the campus to get the
resources they need to grow and thrive,” said Breaux. “And we are leading the way for other HBCUs.” Bowie, Maryland, in Prince Georges County is situated between two major cities – Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The county is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. And Bowie, with a 51% African American population, is one of the wealthiest African American communities in the nation with a household income of $116,000 per year.
Breaux says that companies don’t just come to career fairs at Bowie State to search for graduates to hire. They understand they need a diverse workforce, so they are coming to invest in them. “Employers and businesses have realized they have not had the diverse perspectives that they need in AI, cybersecurity, and other STEM fields and they are realizing there is a big gap,” said Beaux. Bowie State is involved in many research topics, including addressing behavioral mental health issues, green jobs, AI, and cybersecurity. It is the first and only institution of higher learning in Maryland to combine technology and communication and offer a bachelor’s degree in public health informatics and technology or PHIT. Most recently Bowie opened a new ESports gaming facility for students who are already proficient in all things related to E-Sports. “ESports is huge. We have a different generation of students that look at excitement and entertainment in different ways. Students look at problem solving in different ways and really get excited about using this technology,” said Breaux. Breaux recently met with the FBI which is building a new facility in nearby Greenbelt, Maryland. She said the agency expressed interest in forming a partnership to provide internships,
The area is already an entrepreneurial rich
environment, with hundreds of residents already pursuing business ventures. The Entrepreneurship Living Learning Community gives student entrepreneurs the opportunity to work around the clock on their businesses. “As the oldest HBCU in Maryland we are building our own legacy of creating entrepreneurs, said Breaux. “As African Americans we are known for entrepreneurship. We’ve always been in a space where we help people create a way out of no way. The entrepreneurial spirit is already there.” The university is also working with national and international partners like Apple, Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and Adobe –companies that invest in scholarships for Bowie State University students.
community to help drive the economy. Bowie State University, an emerging
Innovation Hub, already brings in $234 million of economic benefit to this region.
What the Innovation Hub will do is attract more businesses and
1 7 | HBCU TIMES FALL ISSUE 2024
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs