Winter/Spring 2002
   

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book coverThe co-authors of Stand and Prosper: Private Black Colleges and Their Students, the first comprehensive history in decades of black colleges and universities, led a discussion with Presidents Institute participants about the unique history and role of HBCUs, as well as their influence on present conditions. The book was published late in 2001 by Princeton University Press.
    Henry Drewry, senior advisor at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Humphrey Doermann, assistant to the president and research associate in economics at Macalester College (MN), said that HBCUs illustrate the general issues facing private higher education of preserving diversity of choice among institutions. Drewry said, "Humphrey and I enjoyed this—our first— opportunity to talk with college presidents about our book following its publication."
    The study encompasses 45 institutions with a combined enrollment of 59,000 students, representing 1 percent of enrollment in all four-year colleges and 26 percent of all black Americans attending four-year private colleges in the U.S. After presenting an overview of the history of HBCUs, Drewry and Doermann focused the discussion on the future of black colleges, saying that "although there is still the possibility that some of the smaller colleges may merge or even disappear, for private black colleges in general, mere survival is no longer at stake. Instead, these colleges face the challenge of differentiating their missions in an era of rapid technological change."


 Excerpt from Stand and Prosper: Private Black Colleges and Their Students
"The story of the private black colleges is a story of success against extremely high odds. This success has helped to advance the still unfinished business of leveling the nation’s political and economic playing field, and was crucial both to the emergence of a stronger black middle class and to developing black leadership in government, business, and the professions…. Continued success will require both strong institutional leadership within these colleges and also public policies that bring predictability and good sense to such issues as federal financial aid for students, direct institutional support for minority-serving institutions, and how the matter of race is used as an explicit factor in admissions decisions made by selective colleges. Some of the private black colleges will undoubtedly deal better than others with the challenges that new information technologies, the globalization of the economy, and the ever-shifting patterns of financial support impose on them…. But [it is important] that these private black colleges stand and prosper…for all of us."

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Last updated: April 12, 2002
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