2008 Woodie Awards
Southern black colleges struggle
By Noah Bierman / Knight Ridder Newspapers
Issue date: 2/17/06 Section: News
MOST BLACK COLLEGES BY STATE
(www.krtcampus.com)
- Alabama: 14
- North Carolina: 11
- Georgia: 10
- Texas: 9
- Mississippi: 8
- South Carolina: 7
- Louisiana: 6
- Tennessee: 6
- Virginia: 5
- Florida: 4
- Maryland: 4
- Arkansas: 4
- D.C.: 2
- Missouri: 2
- Ohio: 2
These have been rough times for America's historically black colleges and universities.
In August, Hurricane Katrina whacked three such schools in New Orleans, known as HBCUs, forcing large staff cuts and prompting some to question whether they would reopen.
Last year, a series of scandals embarrassed Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, leaving it the only one of 11 public universities in the state to lose enrollment in the fall. Still, a panel of black education leaders said Monday night in Miami that it's not time to turn the nation's 100 HBCUs into museums for black culture.
"Is there still a need for historically black colleges and universities? That question's been asked since 1855," the year Lincoln University enrolled its first students, said Norman C. Francis, president of Xavier University in New Orleans since 1968.
Francis, who took part in a panel discussion on the future of HBCUs at Burger King corporate headquarters as part of the company's Black History Month events, has been spending every day since Hurricane Katrina making the case. His own house flooded and he lost his possessions. Xavier was under seven feet of water.
It was a case, Francis said, of the poor getting poorer: New Orleans' three black schools, including Dillard and Southern universities, suffered more flooding from the storm than the city's wealthier, majority white institutions, Loyola and Tulane universities, which are in areas that stayed drier. Still, Francis said that even if he had to start a black college today from scratch, it would be worth it. More of the nation's black medical students earn a bachelor's degree at Xavier than any college in the nation, said Francis, whose university also boasts a top pharmacy school.
(www.krtcampus.com)
- Alabama: 14
- North Carolina: 11
- Georgia: 10
- Texas: 9
- Mississippi: 8
- South Carolina: 7
- Louisiana: 6
- Tennessee: 6
- Virginia: 5
- Florida: 4
- Maryland: 4
- Arkansas: 4
- D.C.: 2
- Missouri: 2
- Ohio: 2
These have been rough times for America's historically black colleges and universities.
In August, Hurricane Katrina whacked three such schools in New Orleans, known as HBCUs, forcing large staff cuts and prompting some to question whether they would reopen.
Last year, a series of scandals embarrassed Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, leaving it the only one of 11 public universities in the state to lose enrollment in the fall. Still, a panel of black education leaders said Monday night in Miami that it's not time to turn the nation's 100 HBCUs into museums for black culture.
"Is there still a need for historically black colleges and universities? That question's been asked since 1855," the year Lincoln University enrolled its first students, said Norman C. Francis, president of Xavier University in New Orleans since 1968.
Francis, who took part in a panel discussion on the future of HBCUs at Burger King corporate headquarters as part of the company's Black History Month events, has been spending every day since Hurricane Katrina making the case. His own house flooded and he lost his possessions. Xavier was under seven feet of water.
It was a case, Francis said, of the poor getting poorer: New Orleans' three black schools, including Dillard and Southern universities, suffered more flooding from the storm than the city's wealthier, majority white institutions, Loyola and Tulane universities, which are in areas that stayed drier. Still, Francis said that even if he had to start a black college today from scratch, it would be worth it. More of the nation's black medical students earn a bachelor's degree at Xavier than any college in the nation, said Francis, whose university also boasts a top pharmacy school.
