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The Role of HBCUs in Constructing Knowledge: Race, Relevance, and Research

Fri, April 12, 3:05 to 4:35pm, Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Room 201A

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

The proposed session is a research-based treatment of the role of historically black colleges in universities in producing empirical research and transformative scholarship with a critical examination of the politics of anti-blackness in P20 systems. Over one dozen books have been written about historically black colleges and universities over the last two decades (Austin, 2012; Betsey, 2008; Brooks & Starks, 2011; Brown & Freeman, 2004; Clay, 2012; Darity, Sharpe, & Swinton, 2009; Gasman,
2013; Gasman, 2007; Gasman & Tudico, 2008; Hale, 2006; Hill & Fiore, 2012; Lovett,
2011; Lucisano, 2010; Mbajekwe, 2006; and Ricard & Brown, 2008; Willie, Reddick, & Brown, 2006). However, not one of the volumes published addresses the role or significance in knowledge production. There is a quiescence about the role race in the pseudo-meritocracy of research, development, grantsmanship, patents, and rankings.
This session disrupts the silence related to racial stratification that renders research by and about black colleges at the nadir of perceptions of quality, value, or worth. Additionally, the session engages the complications of racial oppression/white supremacy, social stratification, and the persistent hegemony of power in American society with advancing the concept of historically black campuses as research institutions.
American higher education is an epigenetic history of development, expansion, and transformation. Since the founding of Harvard College in 1636 to the rise of mass, asynchronous, virtual campus like The Pennsylvania State University World Campus, postsecondary institutions have evolved to accommodate the emergent demands to educate new groups of students (Geiger, 1999; Rudolph, 1962; Thelin, 2004; Veysey, 1965). At the center of this history are issues of access and education opportunity (Birnbaum, 1988; Cohen, 1998; Hartley, 2002; Stark & Latuca, 1997;

Zemsky, Wegner, & Massy, 2005). Despite an array of institutional types, one of the most remarkable academic forms is the historically Black college and university.
The amended Higher Education Act of 1965 defines historically Black colleges and universities (commonly referred to as HBCUs) as any accredited institution of higher education founded prior to 1964 whose primary mission was, and continues to be, the education of Black Americans (Brown, Donahoo, & Bertrand, 2001; Garibaldi, 1984; Roebuck & Murty, 1993; Williams, 1988). The year 1964 is significant because it marked the passage of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin regarding federally assisted programs and activities (Hendrickson, 1991; Williams, 1988). There are 103 federally designated public, private, four-year, and two-year historically Black colleges, and universities in the continental United States. The 103 HBCUs cluster primarily in nineteen southern and border states (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia), with few exceptions—Michigan, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories (Brown, 1999). Table 1 lists HBCUs by state, character, type, and date of founding.
Similarly to other American postsecondary institutions, HBCUs vary in size, curriculum specializations, and other characteristics. One commonality across HBCUs is their historic responsibility as the primary providers of postsecondary education for Black Americans in a social environment of racial discrimination. Walters (1991) identified six specific goals particular to HBCUs: (a) Maintaining the Black historical and cultural tradition (and cultural influences emanating from the Black community);
(b) Providing leadership for the Black community through the important social role of college administrators, scholars, and students in community affairs; (c) Providing an economic center in the Black community (for example, HBCUs often have the largest institutional budget in the Black community); (d) Providing Black role models who interpret the way in which social, political, and economic dynamics impact Black people; (e) Providing college graduates with a unique competence to address issues and concerns across minority and majority population; and (f) Producing Black graduates for specialized research, institutional training, and information dissemination for Black and other minority communities. Despite this clearly defined cohort, Garibaldi (1984) declared:
Black colleges are not monolithic. Although they are like predominantly White institutions in many ways, their historical traditions and their levels and types of support make them distinct. Like many other institutions of higher learning, Black colleges reflect the diversity that is so characteristic of the United States’ postsecondary education system. This diversity should always be remembered when considering their past, their current conditions, and their future roles in higher education. (p. 6)

The reputation of historically Black colleges or any group of institutions is therefore a complicated cross-section of culture and public opinion. Reputation is a ubiquitous and amorphous amalgamation of facts and fiction, ambition and reality, ignorance, and relationships, as well as social distance or proximal placement. It can be argued that reputation is an intangible instrument of defined constructs employed to promote or delimit power, prestige, or public perception. Slovic (2000) suggested that public perception exists somewhere between truth and belief. He further argued that public perception is shaped by three primary forces; (a) popular opinion, (b) public media, and (c) individual or institutional reputation.
In the past decade, higher education researchers have repeatedly engaged the metaphor of historically Black colleges at universities at “the” or “a” crossroad of academic and postmodern history (Brown, 1995; Brown, 1999; Brown & Hendrickson, 1997; Ricard & Brown, 2008). Jencks and Reisman (1967) declaring these institutions “academic disaster areas” proffered a watermark for the perennial rendering of Black colleges as battering rams and sacrificial lambs in higher education discourse (Gasman & Tudico, 2008). Jason Riley (2010) of the Wall Street Journal penned “Black Colleges Need a New Mission: Once an Essential Response to Racism, They are Now Academically Inferior.” Nearly 200 years into their existence, questions persist regarding the reputational worth of historically Black colleges and universities (Allen & Jewell, 2002; Brown & Freeman, 2002; Browning & Williams, 1978; Cohen, 1998; Drewry & Doermann, 2001; Roebuck & Murty, 1993).
Disproportionately, Black colleges face the task of having to justify their relevance within the larger higher education system. Black colleges are incessantly misunderstood and the benefits of attending them often go unnoticed by the public (Willie, 1994). Benjamin E. Mays (1978), former president of Morehouse College wrote that
No one has ever said that Catholic colleges should be abolished because they are Catholic. Nobody says that Brandeis and Albert Einstein must die because they are Jewish. Nobody says that Lutheran and Episcopalian schools should go because they are Lutheran or Episcopalian. Why should Howard University be abolished because it is known as a black university? Why pick out Negro colleges and say they must die? (p. 27)
Historically Black colleges and universities disproportionately carry the burden of having to justify their role in academe more so than other special mission institutions. While the panoply of diverse institutional types is recognized for their unique missions or niches in the education of differing groups of students, the reputation of Black colleges persists an issue of contention (Brown & Freeman, 2002; Brown, Ricard, & Donahoo, 2004; Fleming, 1984; Garibaldi, 1991).

In 2002, Brown and Freeman guest edited a special issue of The Review of Higher Education that focused on empirical research on historically Black colleges. They concluded their introduction with these words:
It is apparent that the history, contributions, and contexts of historically Black colleges and universities must be documented. Researchers and policy makers in higher education must begin to pay more attention to this unique cohort of institutions. Historically Black colleges evince objectives, populations, philosophies, and environments which are worthy of scholarly investigation.
The challenge is for the research to become so commonplace that a special issue will no longer be required. (p. 368)
A decade later, the clarion call for research on the relevance and reputation of historically Black colleges and universities persists. Even more, the research must now respond to the threshold of institutional quality etched into public perception.

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