HBCU Times Magazine

2021 WINTER ISSUE

DR. GLENDA GLOVER

PRESIDENT OF TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT AND CEO OF ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA SORORITY, INC.

GAMING TITAN ISIAH REESE DR. JOHNNETTA B. COLE VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT KAMALA HARRIS DR. ROSLYN CLARK ARTIS WILL JONES: FORMER BALLER AND AGGIE SHOT CALLER

HAMPTON UNIVERSITY OLYMPIAN: FRANCENA MCCORORY

BLACK EXCELLENCE HBCUs:

Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training (ARRT) Program at the Langston University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (LU-RRTC) on Research and Capacity Building for Minority Entities PROJECT OVERVIEW:

The Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training (ARRT) Project at the Langston University (historically Black college/university [HBCU]) Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (LU-RRTC) on Research and Capacity Building represents a collaborative effort between the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston ([ICI] Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institution), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University ([NCA&T] HBCU), South Carolina State University ([SCSU] HBCU), and Jackson State University ([JSU] HBCU). The Project implements a Peer-to-Peer Multiple Mentor Model to help post-doctoral fellows navigate institutional context and cross-fertilize their independent research project and research grant proposal through exchanges with a primary mentor and a scientific panel of mentors comprised of content experts, multicultural specialists, methodologists, and statisticians.

The ARRT Program works in concert with the LU-RRTC drawing upon the center’s extensive minority-serving institution research capacity building expertise, collaborative networks, resources, and interventions (e.g., methodology and grant writing web-based trainings, communities of practice, strategic planning, sponsored programs office and institutional review board technical assistance and consultation), offer courses, webinars, and implement peer mentoring as an innovative strategy to holistically address the fellows’ research skill building needs.

INVITATION TO APPLY:

We invite individuals who have earned a doctorate from a minority-serving institution (i.e., HBCU, Hispanic serving institution, or American Indian tribal college) or traditionally White institution (TWI) and current doctoral candidates (must graduate before beginning fellowship) at minority-serving institutions or TWIs interested in employment research to apply to participate in the post-doctoral fellowship. Minority-serving institution based faculty members who have earned doctorates are also eligible to apply (i.e., 80% research supplements through subcontract for such faculty in residence at their employing minority-serving institution are optional). We strongly encourage individuals with disabilities to apply. We are particularly interested in recruiting candidates who have a strong desire to obtain an academic faculty position or research position at a minority-serving institution upon completion of the fellowship program.

PARTICIPATION INCENTIVES:

• Salary and benefits package- Annual salary with full health benefits • Peer-to-Peer multiple research mentorship opportunity with scientific panel mentors • Financial research agenda start-up package- i.e., study participant honorariums/fellow research travel • Peer reviewed publications • Present research findings at national rehabilitation related conferences If you have any questions regarding the Langston University Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training Program (LU-ARRT), please contact | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue Dr. Corey L.2Moore, Principal Investigator/Training Director at (405) 530-7531 or email: capacitybuildingrrtc@langston.edu.

Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (LU-RRTC) on Research and Capacity Building for Minority Entities The MISSION of the Langston University RRTC is to improve minority entities’ (e.g., historically Black colleges/universities [HBCUs], Hispanic-serving institutions [HSIs], and American Indian tribal colleges/universities [AITCUs]) disability and rehabilitation research capacity and infrastructure by conducting a programmatic line of research examining experiences and outcomes of persons from traditionally underserved racial and ethnic populations and communities and capacity-building efforts.

LU-RRTC TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

The LU-RRTC serves as a national resource center for minority entities (MEs) seeking to develop their research infrastructure (RI), and to enhance their capacity to engage in disability and rehabilitation research.

To this end, the RRTC initiates dissemination, training and technical assistance (TA) activities to develop strong RIs within MEs for the conduct of research, preparation, submission, and management of NIDRR funded research grant projects. TA services are provided as a part of LU-RRTC interventions for research project participants and to ME and SVRA requestors around the country. The quality, intensity, and duration of TA vary by system (i.e., ME or SVRA) and the readiness of TA recipients.

Minority Entity TA Areas- • Faculty Scholar Role & Function Balance Consultation (e.g., teaching/service/research balance)• Sponsored Programs Office Operations Consultation • Research Infrastructure Strategic Planning • Institutional Review Board (IRB) Operation Consultation • NIDRR Research Proposal Development Mentorship • NIDRR Research Project Management Consultation • Manuscript for Peer Reviewed Publication Development Mentorship • NIDRR Request for Comment (RFC) or Request for Proposal (RFP) Interpretation Consultation • NIDRR Expert Panel Application Development Consultation • Data Management and Analysis Software and Related Technology Support Consultation State Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (SVRA) TA Areas- • SVRA Policy Consultation to Improve Outcomes for Persons from Traditionally Underserved Communities • SVRA Rehabilitation Practitioner Consultation or Training to Improve Outcomes for Persons from Traditionally Underserved Communities LU-RRTC PEER-TO-PEER MENTOR RESEARCH TEAM ACADEMY

The LU-RRTC Peer-to-Peer Mentor Research Team Academy represents a collaborative effort between Langston University and the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The Academy mentors Fellows to conduct research that addresses the rehabilitation needs of persons with disabilities from traditionally underserved backgrounds and communities. Ultimately, the program builds Fellows’ scholarly self-efficacy and research skills by providing them with state-of-the-science knowledge of scientifically valid measurement strategies and methodologies, and direct hands-on experience in the conduct of research and grant proposal development.

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HBCU DR. DAVID STATEN The holidays are here and although we remain in the midst of a global pandemic, HBCU Times is here to bring happiness and cheer! Over the past several months, the entire world has demonstrated unthinkable resilience during a time of great hardship. Although things are a bit different, we want to maintain the joyful spirit that accompanies this special time of year.

As a holiday treat, this month’s cover story is a double feature!

First up we have no other than Dr. Glenda Glover, who serves as the president of both Tennessee State University and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. Dr. Glover takes us down memory lane, revealing how her passion to serve others began as the daughter of a civil rights activist. From aiding in the growth and development of TSU students, to leading initiatives to provide funding for HBCUs, Dr. Glover is not only serving, but actively advancing the Black community through numerous avenues. Next up, we are delighted to feature mogul, entrepreneur and gaming titan, Isiah Reese, CEO of Aperion Global Institute. Along with telling the story of creating his own pathway to success, the South Carolina State University alum is dropping gems about the value of micro credentialing. Reese discusses details of his company’s current partnerships with HBCUs, allowing students to earn certificates to increase their marketability.

Continuing our commitment to uplifting the voices of Black changemakers, our article covering Dr. Johnnetta Cole, former president of both Spelman College and Bennett College, talks advocating for and empowering Black women. Currently, as the national chair and president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), Dr. Cole is devoted to effecting change in the Black community, especially concerning systemic racism. She discusses the present health disparities that exist in our country, the necessity of civic engagement, and emphasizes the crucial role HBCUs play in the advancement of Black Americans.

Additionally, our TMCF feature highlights the charitable act of philanthropist and former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who gifted $100 million to HBCU medical schools.

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EDITOR’S MESSAGE

Although institutions such as Morehouse College, Meharry Medical College and Howard University are responsible for a significant portion of Black doctors, many prospective students refrain from completing the journey due to financial barriers.

Bloomberg’s contribution will not only increase the representation of Black individuals in the medical field, but further promote health equity in the United States.

This issue also highlights HBCU Alumni and former studentathletes, showing just how far their competitive nature goes.

Track star Francena McCorory inspires readers with her journey of running to stay out of trouble in grade school, to earning an Olympic gold medal. Following her heart, McCorory attended Hampton University where she learned valuable lessons, such as the bond and responsibility of sisterhood. Also, we’re highlighting head coach of North Carolina A&T State University men’s basketball team, Will Jones. Coming off of a second place victory at the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference (MEAC), along with the title of Coach of the Year, Jones expresses his gratitude for serving as head coach at a Division I school. He talks about the importance of student-athletes balancing training and courses, fostering team spirit to achieve success on the court, and his plans to get more students interested in attending HBCUs. Lastly, our very special holiday gift to you is an op-ed by Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. The Howard University alumna reflects on her time at the institution, witnessing young Black brilliance in every space, while consistently reminded to use her talents to make the world a better place. With a true commitment to servant leadership, Vice President-Elect Harris emphasizes America’s duty to invest more in HBCUs, as they lead the way in producing Black leaders capable of improving the nation as a whole.

Times may be tough, but so is our will to produce great stories to finish off the year strong. Do not allow the challenging nature of the present to disrupt the moments of joy that occur, in some capacity, on a daily basis. Our leaders and beloved institutions are pushing forward, and so should you. So stay inside, cue the holiday music, and enjoy this issue of HBCU Times!

WHAT’S INSIDE

C ONTE NTS

2021 Winter

08 DR . JOHN N ETTA B . COLE: STI LL F I GHTI N G F OR JUSTIC E A N D EQU I TY 11 VSU LEA DER : PR ESI DEN T M A K OLA A B DU LLA H 14 VI CE PR ESI DEN T- ELECT K A M A LA HA R R I S: B R EA K ING B A R R I ER S 16 N ATI ON A L COA LI TI ON OF 1 0 0 B LA CK WOM EN A ND PR ESI DEN T JON A’ HODGES 18 CERTI F I ED DI A M ON D: JESSM I N E COR N ELI U S 20 B EN EDI CT COLLEGE CA R ES 23 F EATU R ED STORY: PR ESI DEN T, CEO DR . GLEN DA G LOVE R: THE HEA D SI STER I N CHA R GE 28 B LA CK EX CELLEN CE: OLY M PI A N F R A N CEN A M CCORORY 30 WI LL JON ES: F OR M ER B A LLER A N D A GGI E SHOT C ALLE R 32 HB CU LAW SCHOOLS: B U I LDI N G STR ON G LEGA CIE S 34 A A M U A LU M S CELEB R ATE B LA CK EX CELLEN CE ON THE OPR A H WI N F R EY N ETWOR K 36 TM CF B LOOM B ER G GI F TS M I LLI ON S TO I N CR EA SE THE N U M B ER OF B LA CK DOCTOR S 38 F EATU R ED STORY: I SI A H R EESE: M OGU L, EN TR EP RE NUE R A N D GA M I N G TI TA N 44 TA M EI K A I SA A C DI VI N E: B U SI N ESS WOM A N , LAWYE R AND ELECTED OF F I CI A L

46 A U B R EY JA CK SON : M EDI A PR OF ESSI ON A L, LI F ESTYLE AND TR AVEL B LOGGER 48 PR OTECT B LA CK WOM EN , B U T U N DER STA N D U S FIRST 51 POWER A LU M N I

DR . B Y R ON F OR D

DR . WA K EEN A N OLA N DI CK EN S

DEA N B R OWN E C. LEWI S

A LI YA H DAVI S

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HBCU EDITOR AND CO-CEO Dr. David Staten CO-CEO Dr. Bridget Hollis Staten

CREDITS

ART DIRECTOR Mia Salley ASSOCIATE EDITORS Amori Washington Octavia Robinson Dr. Regina Bush CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris Dr. Roslyn Artis Attorney Lani Shaw Dr. Macie Smith Ericka Blount Danois Kimberlei Davis Olanma Mang Dr. Harry Williams Amori Washington Dr. Byron Ford Dr. Wakeena Nolan Dickens Dean Browne C. Lewis Aliyah Davis

MODELS Jasmine Raiford Kierra Carter Frednesha Sanders

LOGO DESIGNER Designs by Mia, LC PUBLISHER Georgetown Times

CREATIVE CONSULTANTS Ebony Hillsman Estervina Rogers Paula Lyles Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell Dr. Demarcus Bush Dr. Corey Phillips Dr. Carlton Watson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Thurgood Marshall College Fund Terrell Maxwell of Maxwell Photography Chuck Kennedy Willie Bretz Photography Dynah Banks Rolondo Davis United States Chamber of Commerce Leroy Amankrah Virginia State University Howard University Tennessee State University NC A&T State University I GOT NEXT Breonna Taylor Artwork by Ortega Missouri Additional photos provided by the authors and interviewees.

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DR. JOHNNETTA B. COLE:

STILL FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE AND EQUITY

BY OLANMA HAZEL MANG

T

he empowerment of Black women in the United States has been a passionate undertaking for anthropologist, activist and educator, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, throughout her life.

Her career spans decades of service to the Black community through education, leadership and advocacy, avenues she continues to tread today as president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).

The organization aims to lead, advocate for, and empower women of African descent so they can effect change in their families and their communities at large, Cole told HBCU Times in an interview. This mission has always been central to NCNW since its inception in 1935, and it is perfectly in line with Cole’s own ideals about Black women and their advancement in society.

She herself has presided over two Historically Black Colleges for women: Spelman College, where she served as its first Black female president from 1987 until 1997, and Bennett College from 2002 to 2007.

“That was an amazing gift, an amazing gift for me to be the president of these two institutions that are focused on educating Black women,” she told the magazine. “When you educate a man, you educate a man. When you educate a woman, you educate a nation.”

Before presiding at these institutions, Cole led the Black studies program at Washington State University and has taught women’s studies, African American studies and anthropology, a field in which she holds a PhD and master’s degree.

Now, she is the national chair and president of NCNW. The organization is still continuing the fight against inequality, almost 85 years since its founding, with their Four for the Future agenda that focuses on education, health, entrepreneurship and financial literacy and civic engagement and public policy.

Through webinars, panels, discussions and workshops, the organization promotes education in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), educates its audience on financial literacy and entrepreneurship, and creates

awareness about the disparities that affect Black women today, one of which is healthcare. The coronavirus pandemic, she said, highlights this even further.

“If this pandemic, centered of course in the spread of COVID-19, has taught us anything, it has surely taught us the absolute injustice of health disparity,” she said. “Black people, brown people, indigenous people are being infected and dying at rates that are unbelievably higher, not unbelievably, unjustly higher than the rate at which white people are infected and are dying.”

Studies from APM Research Lab, a division of American Public Media Group, showed that the coronavirus disease mortality rate for Black Americans was two or more times as high as that for Whites and Asians.

“NCNW is committed to first helping our communities and all communities understand the ongoing results of systemic racism that are reflected in health disparities,” Cole said.

Part of its efforts include penning public policies on healthcare.

The organization regards access to healthcare services as a basic human right and advocates for the distribution of these services without discrimination of any kind, whether it be age, race, gender, geography or pre-existing conditions.

But civic engagement is priority right now for NCNW, Cole said, especially as the presidential election draws near and the national census comes to an end.

“We are laser-focused, I’d even say obsessed, on getting out to vote. We believe the reality that’s captured in that expression, ‘We must vote like our lives depend on it because they do,” she said. NCNW dispenses information about voting through its website, to ensure that the public and its members understand and are up to date with the voting process and requirements.

NCNW has also partnered with Fair Count with the Sisters for the Census national campaign to encourage Black women to

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“WE KNOW THAT IF WE ARE TO HAVE A FUTURE THAT OUR OLDER MEMBERS MUST EXERCISE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO MENTOR OUR YOUNGER MEMBERS” be actively involved in making sure they and members of their families and communities are counted in the U.S. 2020 Census.

Fair Count is a nonprofit founded by former Georgia House minority leader and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

The group is especially dedicated to achieving a fair and accurate count for Georgia residents and in the nation at large.

Cole said this initiative is very important because it ensures that resources are secured for Black communities. An estimated 132 programs used Census Bureau data to allocate over $675 billion in funds during the 2015 fiscal year, according to a 2017 working paper from the Census Bureau. The federal government also relies on census data to distribute about $1.5 trillion in funds to programs like Medicare, food stamps, as well as rural and public education.

“That’s how we get more resources for our schools. That’s how we have better roads, better health care facilities and that’s how we have more political power because representation is based on the census,” Cole explained.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities will also benefit from sufficient federal funding. Though recently, these institutions have received more endowments and funding from the federal government, they are still behind their predominantly white counterparts in that regard. This is something Cole said is a result of systemic racism that permeates the education system in the United States.

“Here’s what I mean. If we look at school districts – I’m talking about grade school, middle school, high school – those school districts where the students are predominantly not white, they receive $23 billion less in funding than predominantly white schools in the United States, even though they have the same number of students,” she explained, alluding to a 2019 report by EdBuild, which concluded that gerrymandered school districts cause this racial and economic divide.

“So, when we talk about inequities experienced by HBCUs, we’re talking about a pattern of inequity with respect to Black students throughout their educational experience,” Cole continued.

It’s a point she made passionately. As an educator herself, the provision of and the access to education, are things she considers to be particularly important. She acknowledged the importance and achievements of HBCUs despite the financial disadvantages they face.

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“Whenever I have been in a situation where someone wasn’t quite sure about the value of these institutions, among the things that I would do would be to say, well look at the product, look at those who have graduated,” Cole said, naming HBCU alumnae like Democratic vice-president elect Kamala Harris of Howard University and Oprah Winfrey of Tennessee State University.

NCNW also has a history with HBCUs, after all, it was founded by educator and civil rights activist, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, who also founded Bethune-Cookman University and co-founded the United Negro College Fund. Cole said NCNW regards HBCUs as crucial hubs to foster excellence and the advancement of Black Americans. It’s one of the reasons they have sections on both HBCU and PWI campuses across the nation.

With 300 campus and community-based sections across the country, Cole says NCNW is hoping to become more intergenerational, attracting more young women and encouraging their transition from college sections to communitybased sections across the country after they graduate.

“We have got to make sure that we have a future and that means that NCNW is in deep, deep, deep involvement with young women,” she said.

This engagement with young women heavily revolves around mentorship, something Cole absolutely swears by. She asserted, “I do believe deeply in the power of mentorship. One of the reasons I say that and believe it is because I know that I would not have gotten to where I have gotten, were it not for my mentors.”

Cole grew up in the segregated south in Jacksonville, Florida. Her parents saw education as a tool for empowerment. Her mother was an English college professor, and her father encouraged her to learn from the likes of Bethune, who was a friend of his. Her professor at Oberlin College – where she earned her undergraduate degree in sociology – mentored and pushed her to later study anthropology at Northwestern University under her academic mentor, Melville J. Herskovits. Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Florida Rep. Donna Shalala urged her to take up the mantle of leadership at Spelman College.

“We know that if we are to have a future that our older members must exercise their responsibility to mentor our younger members,” Cole said. Today, she mentors many young women, from whom she said she also learns, as mentorship is a two-way learning street.

Justice requires that the disparities the Black community continues to face be fixed, the anthropologist said, and Black women play an important role in the fight. “Whether it is on our college campuses or in our communities or in our families, we Black women must continue to do what we have to do and certainly at the top of that list is stay in the struggle for justice,” Cole said.

VSU LEADER: PRESIDENT MAKOLA ABDULLAH

BY KIMBERLEI DAVIS

W

e often read stories about great men, noble men.

Men who slayed giants, scaled tall buildings, ran toward danger and fought for the fate of Wakanda.

These men, whether real or fictional, taught us all they never really did it by themselves - there was an army, a tribe of between one to a few dozen solid people in their circle.

So much of who the leader of Virginia State University is as a man was shaped in his youth, birthed in his marriage, and rooted in his four core beliefs: God, family, the transformative nature of education, and of course, Virginia State University.

Parents have the priceless opportunity to help define their child’s personality and character by choosing their name.

The same is true for Samella Abdullah when she announced the arrival of her only son, “The Strong One, Servant of God.” Samella and Richard Packard were active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and ‘70s - a time that strengthened the sense of Black pride and identity.

Black Americans began to discover more about their origins, the horrors of slavery and racism were exposed as never before.

There was also a surge in parents giving their children names with African ancestry.

President Makola Abdullah, the youngest African American to receive a Ph.D. in engineering at the age of 24, grew up in South Shore, a predominantly Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side with sisters Tracey Carter and Ghanima Abdullah.

In one of the city’s middle-class neighborhoods, Dr. Abdullah says he felt empowered and protected by the adults and children who all wanted the best for each other.”

Forged in every close-knit community where everybody knows your name is the bond of friendship.

From nursery school, to the halls of Lake Forest Academy, to earning undergraduate degrees in civil engineering from Howard University, to being the Godfather to at least one of each other’s children, Makola and Michael Pierce are more than friends, they’re family.

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“Mike is the best person in the world, a man of such high character who helps keep me grounded,” Dr. Abdullah says of his longtime friend who is a part of their high school “Fearsome Foursome.”

“Olufemi Nicol, John Randy Spellers, Mike and I grew together at Lake Forest. We didn’t always like each other, but we loved each other and continue to be close today,” he said. “We treat each other’s mothers like our own mothers and treat each other’s sisters like our own sisters.”

The importance of relationships is just as therapeutic for men as it is for women.

“To have friends like I have that go back so far - people who really know you and are not caught up in what’s happening now is priceless.”

Since reopening amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, many major U.S. cities have been marked by bullets and bloodshed.

The surge in shootings has been particularly painful for communities of color, which have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, high unemployment rates and social unrest following the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.

Discussions surrounding mental health have also surged in recent months, but have not become enough of the larger conversation in communities of color.

When K-12 and colleges were forced to close, some students felt the real effects of being financially insecure, housing insecure and food insecure coupled with turmoil in the streets.

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Dr. Abdullah, gleaning from his late mother a clinical psychologist, offered this advice to students who felt VSU was their safe haven, “It’s important to seek professional help (if necessary), but be open up enough to find those people who want to be champions for you.”

“That’s the beauty of Virginia State and all HBCUs is the ability to have a friend, faculty or staff member, or coach who you see as their first champion and then you all develop more champions.”

In August of 2018, Dr. Abdullah was elected a member of the Board of Trustees for the Virginia Historical Society, which owns and operates the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

He also serves as a member of the executive committee for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, as a Board of Trustee member for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and the 5000 Role Models of Excellence.

He is the chair for the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Board of Directors. In 2017, he was inducted into the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge Alumni Hall of Fame. Abdullah is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated.

On his growing list of professional associations and affiliations, one that best helped his development as a man is not listed.

‘Behind every great man is a great woman’ – we’ve all heard that old expression.

There’ve been countless jokes and parodies based on it: from the meddling mother and nagging wife jokes to the alteration, ‘behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.’

In June of 2018, the University was named the HBCU of the Year and awarded Best Board of Trustees of the Year and Female Student of the Year by HBCU Digest, an online blog.

Additionally, in 2017, President Abdullah was named the HBCU Male President of the Year.

But all jokes aside, in Dr. Ahkinyala Cobb-Abdullah, the first lady of Virginia State University and Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Ecology at Virginia Union University, Abdullah learned marriage. “It ain’t about you at all, it’s about how do we create a better world.”

In the infancy of their marriage, six couples living in Tallahassee, Florida formed ‘The Married People’s Club’ to help them navigate how to sustain and celebrate their union.

Through their children Mikaili (Morehouse ‘19) and Sefiyetu (VSU ‘18), Drs. Abdullah have an “Incredible connection to the future, appreciation for the past and ability to see the world built on a strong relationship.”

Now in his fourth year as the leader of one of the nation’s top 20 “Best Colleges for African Americans” as recognized

by ESSENCE magazine, Dr. Abdullah says five years post COVID-19 he expects that VSU will be one of the most technologically advanced institutions in the country.”

“VSU will adapt to the new environment by being both a great digital and an incredible in-person institution leading and training the next generation of African American professionals.”

If tasked to develop a PhD program centered around how to respond to a global pandemic, Dr. Abdullah said the research program would focus on shared governance in university leadership.

“All of the successes that HBCU leaders have had during the crisis have come from having the right people at the table. All of the challenges that have occurred were not having the right people at the table.”

There may have been a time or two when Dr. Makola Abdullah’s name disqualified him from sitting at a table, but with decades of influential leadership he’s learned that, “My friends and my enemies were speaking strength to me through my name and that by calling my name they were speaking positivity to me.”

“THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF VIRGINIA STATE AND ALL HBCUS IS THE ABILITY TO HAVE A FRIEND, FACULTY OR STAFF MEMBER, OR COACH WHO YOU SEE AS THEIR FIRST CHAMPION AND THEN YOU ALL DEVELOP MORE CHAMPIONS.” In the age of #MaskUp and #SocialDistancing, Abdullah sees the Trojan family expanding its customer service and ability to serve and connect with students, faculty, staff and alum.

“Part of our magic as HBCUs is in the proximity of people and that’s the one thing that’s being taken from us right now with COVID-19, but it will allow us to make other things stronger.”

Under President Abdullah’s leadership, the University has experienced some significant achievements such as establishing the University’s Advisory Board for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer/Questioning Intersex Ally+ (LGBTQIA+) Inclusion to investigate ways for the institution to be a more affirming learning environment for all students, faculty and staff within the LGBTQIA+ community.

Kimberlei Davis is a published author, brand strategist, empowerment speaker and an accomplished journalist currently working in print, digital and broadcast media. She is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University and is the founder of The LEAP Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed at assisting with the academic outcome of foster children. Kimberlei is the mother of one son, Benjamin.

Connect with the writer @KimberleiDavis

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 13

VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT KAMALA HARRIS: BREAKING BARRIERS

BY VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT KAMALA D. HARRIS

L

ike most students at Howard University, my favorite place to hang out was the Yard. It’s a wide open space in the heart of the campus—alive with music, dance, deep discussions, lively debates, and laughter. On any given day, you might spot a group of undergraduates dressed up in suits, running off to internships on Capitol Hill, or medical students in their white coats, heading back to the lab. It is a vibrant home for everyone, enriched by faces, accents and minds from around our country and the globe.

For alumni like me, the Yard represents more than nostalgia.

It remains a glimpse into the breadth and brilliance of young Black people as they begin to understand their own power and potential in the world. This is the essence—and importance—of the HBCU experience. Every signal that we students received at Howard told us that we could be anything. We could come as we were and leave as the people we aspired to be. We didn’t need to be singled out as exceptional—because that part was already understood. There was an implicit assumption, and acceptance, of our abilities and potential. And we all knew there was an expectation that we would apply our work ethic, our talents and our commitment to make the world a better place.

It’s no wonder that HBCUs like Howard University have always played an outsized role in contributing to the success of Black Americans—and America itself. HBCUs make up only a small percentage of our country’s institutions of higher education, but their graduates comprise 40 percent of Black engineers, half of all Black lawyers, and 80 percent of Black judges. HBCUs also produce 25 percent of Black graduates in STEM. And Xavier

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University of Louisiana leads the nation in producing Black graduates who go on to finish medical school.

And yet, despite their proud tradition and unique track record of success, HBCUs are chronically underfunded, neglected by our state and federal governments, and lack the endowments that elite, predominantly white institutions enjoy. For instance, between 2002 and 2011, Howard University produced almost the same number of Black undergraduates who went on to get PhDs in STEM fields as Stanford, Harvard, Yale and MIT combined—four schools who enjoy tens of billions of dollars in endowment funds that Howard currently lacks. As a result, from crumbling infrastructure to a lack of financing, HBCUs face enormous challenges—challenges that pose an existential threat to many of these institutions.

At the same time, Black students disproportionately face an uphill battle when it comes to financing a higher education. Because of the systemic racial wealth gap that reverberates through generations, white families have ten times the wealth that Black families do—which means Black students are forced to take on more debt to pay for higher education. As a result, the average Black student graduates with $23,000 in debt, compared to the average white student who graduates about $16,000 in debt.

For generations, HBCUs have invested so much in students like me—but America hasn’t invested nearly enough in HBCUs. And our nation simply cannot afford to squander this uniquely vital resource.

At a time when America is reckoning with how systemic racism hurts all of us, it is more important than ever that every field reflects the diversity of our country. If we are going to ensure equal justice under law, we need more Black lawyers, judges, prosecutors and lawmakers working in our criminal legal system.

If we are going to deal with the racial health disparities that are causing Black communities to disproportionately suffer in the COVID-19 pandemic, then we need more Black doctors, nurses, and medical professionals. If we are going to ensure that the economy of the future benefits all people, then we need more Black start-ups, small business owners, and CEOs. If we are going to build the technology of the future to reflect our values of fairness and equality, then we need more Black software engineers, data scientists, designers, and coders.

And in every single one of these areas, HBCUs can lead the way.

President-elect Biden and I understand that. We understand the essential role that HBCUs have played throughout our history, and the role they can play in securing America’s future.

That’s why we will invest more than $70 billion in HBCUs and minority-serving institutions (MSIs), including grants to lower student costs, improve student retention, and increase graduation

rates. This funding will not only help modernize existing HBCU facilities—it will also build new ones. Our plan calls for creating 200 new centers of excellence to engage more students who are underrepresented in fields critical to our nation’s future— including tackling climate change, addressing inequality, and fighting health disparities.

We will also make college affordable for all Americans by doubling Pell grants, reducing monthly student loan payments for people on income-based repayment plans, and offering free tuition for students at community colleges. And we will forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from private HBCUs and MSIs and public colleges for those with incomes up to $125,000.

The history of HBCUs, as institutions where formerly enslaved people could get an education and build new lives, is rooted in a quintessentially American form of optimism. It’s a belief that we can move forward, together, unburdened by what has been, and knowing what can be. That’s the legacy I inherited at Howard, both in the lecture halls and on the Yard—and it’s the birthright we must leave for the next generation of HBCU students, and for all our children. And that is the legacy I will take with me into the White House.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 15

NATIONAL COALITION OF 100 BLACK WOMEN AND PRESIDENT JONA’ HODGES

BY OLANMA MANG

T

he issue of economic inequality disproportionately affecting women of color in the United States is a tale as old as time. Champions in the movement towards bridging the pay gap have risen, discussions have been had, and policies and laws have been passed. But it seems the fight still rages on, and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) wants to be a part of the solution.

The coalition advocates gender equality and economic empowerment for Black women, among other core values they embrace. Since its founding in 1970, the organization has established 61 chapters with 2,800 members nationwide. In 2014, it chartered a Columbia, South Carolina chapter, its only chapter in the state. Jona’ Hodges was elected as the chapter’s president this year in May. In this leadership role, the new chapter president wants to focus on remedying the economic and health disparities that Black women face in the Columbia area.

“We advocate for girls and women of color, and women of color, as you know, we are still the lowest paid,” Hodges said in an

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interview with HBCU Times, “and our health disparities in our community as far as mortality rate…when you go to the hospital, you expect excellent care when you’re giving birth but our women of color don’t always receive the same medical treatment,” she continued, referencing the high maternal mortality rate for Black women.

Several publications in the National Library of Medicine state that Black women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than their white counterparts.

Additionally, infant mortality rate for infants of Black women is at least twice as high as that for infants of non-Black women, according to a 2018 report from the National Center for Health Statistics.

In the economic side of things, Black women still trail behind.

The 2019 U.S. Census Bureau showed that the overall pay gap between men and women did not change from the previous year.

The earnings ratio between the two sexes remained at 0.823. For Black women, the number was even less at 62 cents for every dollar a white man earned. According to the National Women’s Law Center, there was only a one cent increase in the average earnings for Black women in the country. It also listed South Carolina as one of the top 10 worst states with wage inequality for Black women.

To this effect, Hodges said the chapter will focus on creating awareness about these issues to young Black women. “Our role is to educate our community, educate our sisters. We provide information, we provide resources in the four areas of our goal,” she said, “as well as information regarding programs to assist women and girls of color.”

Hodges, herself, is a native of the South Carolina Lowcountry.

She strives to serve her community as a member of several committees in Irmo, South Carolina, including The Rotary Club of Lake Murray-Irmo and the National Association of University Women, among others. Hodges is also a member of three honor societies. She attended South Carolina State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. With strong roots in South Carolina and a passion for serving her community, the empowerment-centered tenets of NCBW attracted her to the organization.

“I feel strongly about the mission of the organization,” she said.

“I felt that it would be a way for me to support my community, to work with women of color and girls of color in the Columbia area.”

The organization also mentors young girls from elementary school age upwards to young adults, through forums to highlight the importance of education. Hodges explained, “We would like

to begin at an early age to encourage our young girls and serve as mentors and role models for them as well.”

Keeping in line with its stated purpose on its website, the NCBW Columbia chapter has formed partnerships with some organizations to combat some of the disparities women of color continue to face in the state. The chapter has hosted summits with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to discuss minority health and to combat the HIV epidemic in the state. The League of Women Voters is also another partner that aims to cater to uplifting the voices of women across the country during the upcoming election.

Another major goal for Hodges is to grow the chapter more than its current size. “We have 50 plus professional accomplished women and we would like to grow our organization with additional like-minded community leaders who are willing to serve as advocates on behalf of Black women and girls,” the chapter president said.

Even with the coronavirus pandemic putting a stop to the inperson meetings the chapter is used to having, Hodges said the organization is taking advantage of social media and virtual meetings and webinars. The fight to end social, economic and health disparities for Black women in the United States is one that will not be deterred by the pandemic. Hodges said, as with the times, the organization must and will adapt to continue pressing on.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 17

CERTIFIED DIAMOND: JESSMINE CORNELIUS

D

BY KIMBERLEI DAVIS iamonds are formed under intense heat and pressure.

HBCU one day and I’m watching you.”’

We awe at the sparkle and glitz, forgetting the process and mining diamonds endure.

Dr. James replied with a quick thank you, Jess said, and the rest is history.

Texas native Jessmine Cornelius is one of those rare jewels who can command the attention of 25+ million viewers with her vocal capabilities while also making you pause at her story of surviving a 2017 suicide attempt.

Jess is now a part of the team to #RestoreMorrisBrown and the #HardReset.

I spoke with the senior registrar specialist and CHOICE project coordinator at Morris Brown College about the state of HBCUs amid the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of local and state elections.

The 26-year-old doesn’t approach life the conventional way and it has proven to work well.

They say it all goes down in the DMs. Well for Jess, a congratulatory tweet to Dr. Kevin E. James, president of Morris Brown College helped land her a job.

“Living in Dallas, I didn’t know much about Morris Brown or Atlanta, but I said to Dr. James, ‘I want to be the president of an 18 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

The 139-year old college has continued to graduate students despite the loss of accreditation nearly two decades ago.

“People don’t give Morris Brown its credit and its importance to HBCU culture,” she exclaimed. “It’s amazing how a private HBCU that sits a stone’s throw away from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and is adjacent to Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark Atlanta is still open.”

“If so much as one student sees Morris Brown College as a place to receive their degree from then I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure they matriculate through academics, engagement, and leadership.”

Jess Cornelius is a multi-layered powerhouse who has a passion for higher education, advancing equity in Black communities, and music.

After dropping out of college three times, Jess graduated this spring from Prairie View A&M University with a Bachelor of Arts in History and a minor in African American Studies.

But before officially starting her journey as a Panther at PVAMU, Jess said there was a rock bottom moment.

“The first person I called was my mom...my mother helped me get back to a place of equilibrium.”

Jess said she shares her story of attempting suicide, false starts, and restarts because she believes in transparency and helping someone make it to the other side.

Education has been one of those saving graces.

“My late grandmother never had the opportunity to have a formal education, but she was one of the most brilliant people that I knew. One thing my granny always pushed was education.”

Jess said that after being told to soften her approach while attending a junior PWI, she went back to school because of her grandmother, the late Jo Ann Perkins, and knew that an HBCU was next.

The Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society member said, “HBCU alumni account for 80% of Black judges, 50% of Black lawyers and doctors, and 25% of HBCU students receive their degrees in STEM fields.”

HBCUs have long had a negative connotation that the educational experience is not as good as PWIs or are party schools and they serve no purpose, Jess said.

“HBCUs are capsules of togetherness, family, and a community where you see what our ancestors fought for.”

Jess said, “Our ancestors were not punks, they were very strategic.”

We have an opportunity to live out what many of them were never able to through an HBCU experience.

The free spirit is all about making her ancestors proud and is here #ForTheCulture.

Singing since the age of six, Jess can probably “sang” some of the Gospel and R&B greats under the table.

Her cover of Deniece Williams’ “Silly” helped elevate her craft to a larger stage to the tune of 25 million viewers.

With music available on iTunes, Spotify, and other streaming services, Jess is all for spreading light and joy through entertainment, but she continues to focus on how to educate people of their power especially at the ballot box.

“Historically as a nation, we’ve always focused on the two major parties when it comes to the general election, she said. “It’s funny to me because the views of the two parties switched in the ‘50s.”

“Your city and county council members, commissioners, sheriffs, judges, school board members, and so forth will immediately impact you way before someone in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C. will,” said Jess, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.

Jess credits the history of service of Delta women & lessons taught at the knee of her late grandmother at 75 Lemmon Avenue in Dallas as foundation blocks for her top priorities.

From history reform in K-12 teachings to shining more light on minority history – accurate Black history, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and the like, Jess is a chameleon going from hitting Whitney Houston notes to dropping gems about the significance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the ongoing struggle of liberty and justice for all.

To learn more about Jess visit: jsuilenrocmusic.com HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 19

BENEDICT COLLEGE CARES

BY PRESIDENT ROSLYN CLARK ARTIS

B

enedict College has claimed the tagline, “Benedict College puts the BC in HBCU.” The “BC” is synonymous with our identity as a Black College. However, in the wake of COVID-19, “BC” took on a new and equally powerful meaning – “BC” means “Benedict Cares.”

During the crisis Benedict College stood tall as the HBCU that put the “BC” in HBCU. We demonstrated at every turn that Benedict Cares for her students. The College demonstrated empathy, care and compassion that is uncharacteristic of American higher education - Benedict behaved like a family.

HBCUs are large, loving families. The word family means “all descendants of a common ancestor.” Benedict College was founded to educate the descendants of slaves. Our students are the direct descendants of the innocent victims of the greatest human rights violation in the history of the world – the transatlantic slave trade. The irony of an institution built on land that was once a slave plantation, now providing educational opportunity for generations of their progeny, fills me with pride.

I am in awe of this legacy built on faith, fortified by resilience, characterized by persistence and synonymous with strength.

In March, college and universities across the nation, evacuated their campuses. For Benedict, and schools like it, the challenge was significant as few students had the physical and financial wherewithal to simply pack up and leave. Recognizing this reality, Benedict galvanized the Board of Trustees and our alumni and friends to mount an unprecedented emergency fund drive to facilitate student travel. More than $50k came in during the first 24 hours. The Boardroom was transformed into a travel agency and for three days, Benedict staff worked tirelessly to book travel for students. All told, Benedict purchased more than 120 airplane, bus and train tickets - domestic and international. In addition to purchasing tickets, the College ran 24-hour shuttle service to 4 airports (Charlotte, NC, Columbia, SC, Charleston, SC and Augusta, GA) as well as to the train station and the bus depot. The College purchased luggage, paid for checked bags and provided cash subsidies for students with long rides or extended layovers in airports to use for food and other necessities.

These characteristics have been on full display with our handling of the crisis. The “BC-Culture of Care” that evolved and deepened in COVID-19 response is awe-inspiring. Every decision made in the last eight months, including the COVID-19 decisions to evacuate the campus; to support students throughout the summer; and to re-open in the fall, were made with students in the forefront of our minds. That is the magic of HBCUs – the special sauce.

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On Monday, March 25, 2020, our students began their online coursework and we faced our next challenge. Fewer than 25%

of our student body owned a laptop or other home computer.

A shocking 30% did not have internet in their homes. Thus, began Phase 2 of our student support effort - the purchase and distribution of computers and hotspots. While many providers advertised “free” internet service, the fine print required credit checks that resulted in our poorest students having to pay expensive deposits to get the service initiated. Benedict staff provided responses to FAQs for students regarding internet access and, in many cases, negotiated on the student’s behalf. Further, the College paid deposits and in some cases, up to 90 days of internet service for the poorest students. Still more heartbreaking, were the students who lived in remote, rural areas of SC where internet service simply was not available. Fully 12% of Benedict students reside in areas with no access to broadband. In short, our students transitioned off the campus back into digital deserts.

Beyond technology access, students would report homelessness and food insecurity in record numbers. Thus, Benedict would not merely provide financial relief through the CARES Act, but actively facilitate the distribution of food subsidies and housing stipends for its students. Benedict College established an emergency aid fund for students with documented housing, food, childcare or healthcare needs. You see, family takes care of family and Benedict is a family – Benedict Cares.

For those students fortunate enough to have a home, the quality of their home life became an issue. Some live in multi-generational, overcrowded housing, where family members often work in low wage, front line jobs that created significant opportunities for students to be exposed to COVID-19. 13 Benedict students contracted COVID-19 while at home.

Students also wrestled with feelings of displacement – involuntarily removed from campus environments they referred to as home. They battled feelings of guilt for placing a burden on already overcrowded households with little extra money

to allocate toward the unexpected additional mouth to feed.

Emergency requests poured in for food subsidies to support single parent households facing tremendous financial hardships due to COVID-19 related layoffs. Anxiety associated with a new learning modality also wreaked havoc on students’ emotional well-being.

And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse…George Floyd’s murder sparked racial tensions and served as a catalyst for a global response. Our students, who were already wrestling with lack of access, homelessness and food insecurity were also facing the existential threat of systemic racism. We watched the protests in horror, concerned for the safety and well-being of our students, dispersed around the country in cities identified as COVID-19 hotspots and some long referred to as racial hotbeds.

Student after student expressed their despair and anxiety in social media posts and verbally to student support staff.

All of these factors crystalized our decision to re-open the campus in August and bring our family home. We opened the campus to the most vulnerable students – those who lacked access to broadband, those with learning disabilities that made online learning more difficult, if not impossible. We opened for those students who lacked access to food, healthcare and housing. We opened for students who were afraid or unsafe. Simply stated, we opened for students that needed us to.

Nearly one-third of our total student body is on campus this fall. To date, thanks to universal testing, a closed campus, face coverings, a curfew and overwhelming student compliance, the COVID-19 infection rate is less than 2%. Through it all, we have kept our students, staff and faculty safe because, more than anything, Benedict Cares for her students. We are a family. We are the institution that put the “BC” in HBCU!

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 21

BENEDICT COLLEGE

A Legacy of Excellence.

Compassion.

Courage.

Your future won’t wait.

APPLY TODAY!

www.benedict.edu/apply

22 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

™

PRESIDENT, CEO DR. GLENDA GLOVER: THE HEAD SISTER IN CHARGE

BY ERICKA BLOUNT DANOIS

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 23

T

ennessee State University President and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. International President and CEO, Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover, was the only daughter of her five siblings that didn’t mind going with her father, Henry Earl Baskin Sr., to his meetings and taking notes, assisting in campaigns and putting up yard signs. Baskin was a civil rights activist and an NAACP member who participated in sit-ins and demonstrations in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Her father made it a priority to assist students in getting financial aid to attend college.

“That had an enormous influence on me,” said Glover, a certified accountant, an attorney, wife, and mother. “I really wanted to be of service. I wanted to be in an area where I can assist African Americans, having grown up in a home where my father was a civil rights leader in Memphis. I saw things that made me want to serve and help.”

Glover remembers a pivotal moment in her consciousness that increased her desire to help others. She grew up in a county in Memphis where there was no fire protection for the Black people in her neighborhood. She remembers as a young girl watching a house on her block burn to the ground.

“I thought that wasn’t right that they couldn’t come to help,” she remembers. “As a little girl that stayed with me. I wanted to do something to help the community in my own neighborhood.”

Her father led a march in downtown Memphis that led to sewage lines and indoor facilities for Blacks as well as better fire and police protection, and better roads in the South Memphis area.

Glover, a Tennessee State University graduate, calls it a fullcircle moment for her to be back on campus leading students and watching them grow into activists and leaders and preparing them for service.

“I was so honored to be asked to apply for the presidency,” she said by telephone about becoming the president of Tennessee State University. “I want to make sure we have the best university with amazing students that will continue to make the alumni and the community and the country proud. I know leadership is no more than an honor to serve.

It’s wonderful to come back to the university that gave me my start.”

Glover remembers the four years she attended Tennessee State University as a math major as the best years of her life.

“That’s where I developed what I really wanted to do in life,” said Glover. “I almost didn’t finish for lack of money, so I understand firsthand the financial needs of our students which is why my focus is on funding.”

Glover says that in addition to her focus on funding she wants to have a good relationship with the faculty and staff and continue alumni and community engagement. She wants to continue partnering with the community as well as with corporate partners.

Understanding the financial struggles of students because of her own struggle, her first act when she became president was to get alumni to match a personal fund of $50,000.

Alumni not only matched it but over a two-year period she was able to raise nearly $13 million for the university, with the help of corporate partners and alumni.

Her interest in funding HBCUs also sparked her desire to become president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. As a sorority leader, she helped to raise $1 million in one day for three years in a row. The sorority was able to give $50K to $100K to each HBCU. “We want to make sure AKA has an endowment on each campus.

24 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

partnership and things grow out of that and the survival role they both play in our community. Right now I have every AKA on HBCU campuses doing something with voter engagement education, registration, mobilization. That vote is too sacred, too much of a price that we paid. It’s not something I have to force, they are excited about it, they are excited about Kamala Harris (a member of AKA Sorority, Inc.) in one of the most consequential elections in our lifetime.”

Glover says the time period we’re in with a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting African Americans has revealed to the larger community what most Black people have already known – there have been years of neglect and discriminatory practices in the U.S. healthcare system.

“We’ve been fighting this battle since HBCUs were founded - racism, unequal funding, unequal treatment, having to prove ourselves, this pandemic has revealed unequal access to healthcare,” she said. “When others have a cold, we have pneumonia. It’s always been this way. It’s like the Wizard of Oz, it just pulled the curtain back. You can really see what’s back there. But we knew all along.”

We did it at 96 four-year institutions, and extended it to some of the community colleges,” said Glover.

Congressional Black Caucus members like Vice Presidentelect Kamala Harris, Congresswoman Alma Adams and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge who fought for HBCUs to be funded in the CARES ACT, Glover says, contributed to an integral part of their corporate funding.

The secret to her success with funding she says has to do with the relationships she builds. “People give to relationships. You have to describe the necessity of why funds are needed. HBCUs have been underfunded for years,” she said. “The climate for today is ripe.”

She sees being the president of Tennessee State University and president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated as a benefit to both entities, particularly as it relates to student involvement.

“People are concerned that one will take away from the other, but it’s just the opposite. When I am interviewed and quoted in media it brings notoriety to both organizations. They both play a vital role in our community service projects. There’s a

Since the pandemic began, Tennessee State University has had to improve its technology and infrastructure and step up their virtual format and activities. Glover wants to continue making TSU one of the premier educational institutions in the nation by having programs like STEM and health sciences and business that are relevant to the times we are living in.

“Students can see for themselves now. They’ve been told the stories by their parents and grandparents about what they should do and getting the right to vote and how bad it was and the police brutality, but these students can see for themselves what’s happening and they are anxious to make a difference,” said Glover. “They are there because they are genuinely concerned about their racial advancement - making sure race equality happens. I don’t know if it will happen in our lifetime, but they are there to help with that.”

“My dad said the Civil Rights Act wasn’t written for him, it was written to help him, but it wasn’t written for him, because he’d always known that he was a man, but the majority communities didn’t know, they had to be told, they had to have a law passed to show them who we are,” Glover continued. “It’s a movement these students are becoming a part of and I encourage them.

They have answered the call.”

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 25

26 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

DREAM IT • LEARN IT • ACHIEVE IT

Find Your Future at Morgan State University.

morgan.edu

College of Liberal Arts • School of Architecture & Planning School of Business & Management • School of Community Health & Policy School of Computer, Mathematical & Natural Sciences • School of Education & Urban Studies • School of Engineering • School of Global Journalism & Communication • School of Graduate Studies • School of Social Work HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 27

F

rancena McCorory doesn’t have your standard Olympian story. She didn’t always dream of being a track star even though in 2012 she won the Olympic gold medal in the 4 x 400 relay, she’s the NCAA and American indoor record holder in the indoor 4 x 400 event and she was the IAAF 400 meter Indoor World Champion in 2014.

McCorory, the middle child of seven children to a single mother, started running track to stay out of trouble. By the sixth grade, she started following the wrong crowd, and her gym teacher, Cantrese Pierce, noticed her gift for running and suggested she run track, so she could stay after school a little longer and stay out of trouble.

Still, as she outran her classmates, she wasn’t completely committed to running track at first.

“I almost quit several times,” she remembers by phone, “but my god mom ran track and she was the assistant coach at my high school, so I had no choice. She was my inspiration. I wanted to do it because of her.”

BLACK EXCELLENCE: OLYMPIAN FRANCENA MCCORORY

BY ERICKA BLOUNT DANOIS

28 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

McCorory was lucky enough to have a coach, Eddie Williams, who also served as a mentor to her in high school. “He was so amazing, a few of us girls on the track team didn’t have dads in our lives so he pretty much was our dad,” McCorory remembers.

“He kept us in line, made sure our grades were good. He was the best role model ever. Sometimes you feel like you’re behind the eight ball because you don’t have that guidance from a male figure. He definitely stepped in and gave that to us.”

At Bethel High School in Hampton, she trained with Williams and the team in the hallways in the wintertime because there were no indoor facilities. She set the National High School Indoor record at 51.93 for distance.

By her senior year in high school, agents were calling her mother, Gloria McCorory, trying to persuade her to go professional. Both her mother and her coach felt like she was too young and should go to college.

By the time she was ready to go to college, she had dozens of universities courting her, including The University of Florida, Texas A&M, UCLA, Miami University, and Texas University. She

chose Hampton University, the university where her godmother ran track.

She was criticized for choosing an HBCU over some of the high profile athletic programs at other schools. But she made the decision with her heart. She wanted to stay near her family in Hampton and she wanted to go to the school where her godmother’s husband, Maurice Pierce was the coach.

“It was the best decision I ever made to go to Hampton,” she said. “I had so much fun at Hampton. I met a lot of my lifelong friends. My best friend today, we are really close, we talk every day.

There’s nothing like the HBCU experience. There’s definitely a narrative that as an athlete you won’t be successful going to an HBCU, but if they are talented they will be successful wherever they go. I don’t think the school makes the athlete. I think the athlete makes the school.”

The family atmosphere at Hampton kept her focused. “As a student-athlete, I would be gone most of the time,” she said.

“The teachers stayed on us and made sure we got our work done.

It was like we had parents away from home.”

She was the first of her siblings to go to college. During her first year a hamstring injury and two car accidents, one where she injured her lower back and pelvis, kept her out of track meets for a while. But she emerged stronger, winning three NCAA championships at Hampton.

She admits it wasn’t easy to go to school with her godfather as her coach. “It was annoying at times, but definitely for the best,” she said.

Pierce made sure she was on time for class and they maintained a team atmosphere. If anyone on the team did something wrong everyone was accountable for it.

“Once a couple of girls on the track team got into a squabble over a boy, so we all had 5:00am practice because they got in trouble,” she remembers. “I was mad, but it did help. Even later on in life, it teaches me you have to look out for your sister, even if she’s doing something wrong, it’s a reflection on you. We have to stick together.”

She was training for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, when COVID-19 hit.

“I had so many emotions,” she says about the postponement of this year’s Olympics until next year. “I was disappointed, I was hurt. Then I was relieved. I want everyone to stay safe and the Olympics would be a powerhouse for COVID, everyone is coming from all over the world and being in one space. It was a great decision, but it was devastating because we have been training since 2016 for this moment. It sucks, but you gotta keep moving.”

And moving she is. She’s training daily in a makeshift gym she made in her garage, because she’s not yet comfortable going to the gym during a pandemic.

“We have a bench press, whatever we can modify, we do it,” she says about her garage gym. “I do 3 and 4 mile runs. Even though everything is uncertain, I will be ready for 2021 once things open

The highlight of her college career, she says, was breaking the American record at 50.54 for the open 400 indoor.

When she graduated in 2010 she transitioned to the professional circuit, bouncing around Europe. By 2011, she had a world championship title. In 2012 Penn Relays, Francena McCorory won the 4 x 400m with Allyson Felix, Natasha Hastings, and Sanya Richards Ross. That same year, she made the first Olympic team and came in first in the 4 x 400m relay. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she came in first in the 4 x 400 relay again.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 29

WILL JONES: FORMER BALLER AND AGGIE SHOT CALLER

BY OLANMA MANG

T

he 2019-20 college basketball season was a notable run for North Carolina A&T’s men’s basketball team, The Aggies.

Under then-acting head coach Will Jones, the team led a 14-5 record and finished second place in the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference (MEAC). Its accomplishments during the season put the team on the map and garnered Jones a Coach of the Year nod from the conference. Now the official head men’s basketball coach of The Aggies, Jones continues to have his eyes set on winning the next season.

Before stepping into the role of interim head coach last December, Jones served as an associate coach at the university for four years under former head coach Jay Joyner. The pair worked hand-inhand to push the team into an upward momentum. It was on Joyner’s foundation that Jones built the successes that decorated the team last season. He led The Aggies to a first-round MEAC tournament win over Howard University, with the team leading MEAC in eight statistical categories. He also received the BOXTOROW Coach of the Year award and was a Ben Jobe Award finalist, just to name a few of his accomplishments.

The university announced his promotion to head coach in June of this year.

“Being a head coach at a Division I school is really like winning the lottery,” Jones said in an interview with HBCU Times. “Coaches coach all their careers and most don’t get an opportunity to be

30 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

a head coach at the Division I level, and so I consider that to be a blessing.”

But luck plays a very small role in the success Jones was able to lead The Aggies to. One of the key factors in maintaining a strong team, he said, is making sure the student athletes properly balance their courses and basketball training. He also acknowledged that fortifying the strong team spirit between the players and the team staff so that it translates to coordination and teamwork on the court was a key factor in their victories last season.

“Just having that relationship and them believing in me and believing what we were trying to do, I think was an ingredient for us to go out there and have the success,” the coach said.

Their winning streak was unfortunately cut short when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Jones said it was tough to relay the season’s cancelation to the team, part of whom were seniors who had worked very hard and were looking forward to completing their last season as college students. However, he said it was important for the team to espouse a positive attitude to stay hopeful and motivated for the next season.

The pandemic also posed another potential setback for the collegiate sports world. The original start date for the new season was Nov. 10. But with many states in lockdown and with strict enforcement of limited size gatherings, plans to even commence

“I’ve always wanted to have an opportunity to lead. Leadership has always been something that I’ve always researched and tried to get the best perspective of,” he said. “I tell people all the time, that opportunity to do that really gave me a great example of leadership.”

the 2020-21 season were uncertain. Coaches also face the challenge of how to safely conduct training and practice in preparation for the next season.

“We are practicing with our guys in person under strict protocols to stay safe under the COVID guidelines here at A&T, and so we’re kind of operating in a small pod system right now,” Jones told the magazine.

At the time of this interview with HBCU Times, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had not decided on when to start the next basketball season. Despite the ambiguity, Jones said the team will continue practicing in small groups and working on individual skill work in preparation for the next season, whenever it will be announced.

And his ultimate goal is to lead The Aggies to the NCAA tournament and win first place in the MEAC conference. “We want to pick up where we left off and finish this job, our last year in this conference, in MEAC and put another banner up in our gym,” he said.

NC A&T announced in February that it would be leaving MEAC to join the Big South Conference on June 31, 2021. It is a move Jones applauds the university’s administration for making as a means to further increase the university’s prestige among prospective students.

“So for the next five years, the next two years, I’m totally focused on being that coach that really makes the HBCU brand a 360-degree brand that students across the country will be interested in coming to, the head coach said.

With this eagle eye focus, Jones’ mission transcends the court. His new role is all-encompassing. He wants to impact lives: the lives of his team and the life of the HBCU student.

The NCAA has set the start date for the 2020-21 season for Nov. 25.

Jones’ leadership last season and during this pandemic has been a while in the making. As a college basketball player and the polemarch for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity chapter in South Carolina State University, he said he learned a lot about leadership and teamwork. In 2003, the Moncks Corner, South Carolina native earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education with a concentration in sports communication. This experience, he said, piqued his interest in leadership and mentoring.

OLANMA HAZEL MANG is a freelance writer for HBCU Times.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 31

HBCU LAW SCHOOLS: BUILDING STRONG LEGACIES

BY LANI SHAW

A

s a graduate of Howard University School of Law, I have a profound interest in the six HBCU law schools and their continued success. These institutions have strong legacies that tell stories of endurance and perseverance.

These institutions educate and provide opportunities for students of color and have unwavering commitments to diversity. For years, these law schools have assisted in the fight for civil rights and racial justice and have worked tirelessly to increase not only the number of Black lawyers but also the opportunities afforded to those Black lawyers. With the legal profession being one of the least diverse professions in our country, it is not surprising that HBCU law schools have a longstanding commitment to educating Black lawyers and other lawyers of color. The American Bar Association’s 2020 Profile of the Legal Profession reports that only 5% of lawyers are Black, a statistic which has not changed over the past decade, even though the overall population in the United States has increased over that same time frame. Historically, Black students applying to law school have faced barriers to entry when seeking admission to majority institutions. As such, HBCU law schools have played a major part in educating and growing the number of Black lawyers. A potential applicant may be a third generation candidate who has visited the campus numerous times or a first-time college graduate with hopes of changing the trajectory of his or her life—regardless, HBCU law schools strive to provide an atmosphere where both can thrive and feel at home while being supported.

32 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

Indeed, these schools prepare graduates to engage and practice in every sector of the legal field, including government, corporations, large law firms, non-profit organizations and small or solo practice.

Their alumni bases are close-knit and accomplished and they stand ready to assist and mentor students and recent graduates. For some students, HBCU law schools are the obvious choice. Although I attended Hampton University for my undergraduate education, I was relentless in my pursuit of not just a Howard University School of Law degree but also to become a part of the Howard Law legacy. My sister, Keabii Shaw Henderson, was a student at the law school when I was a senior in college, and I knew that I was destined to matriculate there also. When asked why I would strive for an HBCU professional degree after obtaining an HBCU undergraduate degree, my response was that there was no other place for me to continue my education. I had been accepted and received scholarships to a number of majority schools but I wanted to be trained with the same methods and techniques that Thurgood Marshall and so many other legal giants and heavyweights had studied and perfected while also attending a law school that would cultivate my passion for civil rights. Charles Hamilton Houston, a former dean of Howard University School of Law said it best when he opined “a lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society.” Now, to be clear, I am not arguing that one must attend an HBCU in order to be a social engineer. However, it sure does help. There is a certain fortitude that one receives from an HBCU experience. This year, I celebrated my 15-year reunion from Howard Law School and as I ponder my time there, I am very thankful for the education that I received and the lifelong friendships and connections that I made while a student. There is also an instant camaraderie when I meet another Howard Law graduate or even another HBCU law school graduate—whether it be in a business meeting or while serving on a non-profit board.

It is a shared respect and a feeling of family.

Moranne Clarke, another Howard law graduate, stated that she “was extremely impressed with Howard Law’s reputation

for educating and training phenomenal African-American attorneys…and its dedication to preparing students to be social engineers to improve society.” She added, “the knowledge and experiences I obtained at Howard Law allowed me to work with other extraordinary HBCU law school alumni including my colleague and sister Otanya M. Clarke, a North Carolina Central Law School graduate.” Moranne explains that she and her sister, Otanya started Clarke Law, LLC in Atlanta to “share many of the lessons learned from our respective law schools with individuals in our immediate community.” Moranne and Otanya “sought to establish a criminal defense and family law firm to help individuals understand and protect their rights while advocating on their behalf in two of the areas that matter most - liberty and family.”

In addition to preparing students for their future and encouraging graduates to give back to their communities, HBCU law schools also have diversity as an important component of their mission. Texas Southern University, Thurgood Marshall School of Law strives to prepare a diverse group of students for leadership roles in the legal profession, business, and government. In keeping with its rich tradition as an HBCU, the Law School continues to train and educate large numbers of African-American and Hispanic lawyers. At the same time, the Thurgood Marshall School of Law has opened its doors to students from all backgrounds, gaining recognition as one of the most diverse law schools in the country.

As part of a special‐purpose institution for urban programming, the Law School is also committed to making an impact on urban communities. Sadarie Holston, a graduate of Thurgood Marshall School of Law describes HBCU law schools as having “a different energy” than the majority law schools. Holston adds, “I think it is a misnomer that minority law schools are “easy.”

Holston added that in addition to a solid legal education, she learned the importance of relationships, perseverance, and learning to be prepared to think outside the box. The motto of TMSL was “to protect it, improve it and pass it on.” Holston explains, “My law school was built on a legacy of denial, but gave us a charge to understand that we had to strive for excellence to make it in the legal profession, but not only to remember that it was important to continue the legacy and network by service and assistance for those who come after us.”

Indeed, HBCU law schools have a major impact on the lives of their students and graduates and their efforts consistently contribute to the number of Black lawyers. One can never underestimate the valuable education and other intangible tools that students receive from attending HBCU law schools. These institutions have preserved and built strong legacies that will continue to have far-reaching and long-lasting effects on the Black community.

Lani P. Shaw, Esq. is the Enforcement Counsel for the Comptroller of the Currency’s Chief Counsel’s Office. In this role, Lani supervises and regulates national banks and federal savings associations. Primarily, Lani ensures that financial institutions operate in a safe and sound manner and in compliance with laws requiring fair treatment and fair access to financial products. Lani is a recipient of the Comptroller’s Award for Outstanding Service and has received the U.S. Treasury Department’s Special Act or Service Award. Lani is a candidate for the OCC’s Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification and was recently selected for cohort 2 of the agency’s Leadership Exploration and Development program.

Lani is a graduate of Hampton University and Howard University School of Law. Lani serves as First Vice President of the National Hampton Alumni Association, Inc. and is a member of Hampton University’s inaugural class of 40 under 40 award recipients.

Lani chairs Bison on the Vineyard, an annual getaway and fundraiser to Martha’s Vineyard for Howard graduates and friends.

Lani is a former member of the Alfred Street Baptist Church Board of Trustees and currently serves as a member of the church’s elected Board of Directors, where she serves as Vice Chair of the Governance and Legal Committee. She also serves as the Vice President of CARE, the OCC’s African American employee networking group that provides programming and professional development for all employees. Lani is a member of the South Carolina Bar and remains active in the National Bar Association, where she has formerly served as Chief of Staff, Board Member-at-Large and Chair of the Government Lawyers Division. Lani received the NBA’s 40 under 40 recognition in 2014 and the NBA Young Lawyers’ Division’s Young Lawyer of the Year Award in 2010.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 33

AAMU ALUMS CELEBRATE BLACK EXCELLENCE ON THE OPRAH WINFREY NETWORK

BY KIMBERLEI DAVIS

T

here’s a misconception about some reality TV stars - they became highly successful as a result of the show.

to see on #LAMH, the Scotts try to make life as normal as possible for their children, Marsau, Maci and Malia.

But for Marsau and LaTisha Scott, co-owners of Scholt Industries, Inc. and Blaque Cigar Lounge, they’ve been able to leverage platforms that God has afforded them to further their revitalization efforts in communities of color.

While the children are e-learning from home, LaTisha, owner of Infinity Properties, LLC, a commercial property management company, is furthering her education by working towards her second master’s degree in real estate development at Auburn University, as well as her CCIM certification.

Viewers of OWNTV’s “Love & Marriage: Huntsville” were first introduced to the Alabama A&M University graduates in 2019 as a power-couple who made up one-third of a real estate venture, the Comeback Group.

Reared in humble beginnings, the Scotts have shattered glass ceilings to own one of few successful Black-owned general contracting and real estate companies.

“We try to plan our days out as best as possible, but we’ve learned to take it day by day, storm by storm,” LaTisha said.

Each Thursday on iTunes, LaTisha offers advice to moms who are balancing their lives and successful careers on the “Mommy Business” podcast.

According to scholtindustries.com, the company has five locations and touts a pretty impressive portfolio ranging from high-end hotels to an apartment complex.

The podcast which delves into everything from entrepreneurship, spirituality, motherhood, marriage and self-development was birthed as a result of LaTisha wanting to improve her diction and public speaking.

While portions of their life are being chronicled for all the world

“I wanted something that would force me to speak daily while

34 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

drawing from other women. There’s nothing like someone else sharing their story and their struggles to give you the motivation you need.”

Marsau, a critical thinker, started his first business at 13 years old selling community newspapers in front of a local shopping plaza in Pontiac, Michigan. At 17, during his senior year in high school Marsau partnered with his brother Maurice Scott and started M&M Pool Construction Company.

A strategy Marsau applies in business and in life is to “look at things from a 10-foot view inside of a 50,000-foot view.”

He admonishes that while achieving greatness on a large scale is wonderful, appreciating effective change whether at home or in business is more fulfilling.

While the Scotts are building family and financial wealth, the couple is not removed from the realities of being Black in America.

The “talk” has now become a multiple times a day occurrence in Black households as a result of the recent shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin and the suffocation death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York by the hands of law enforcement.

The Scotts too are concerned about the images of brutality and level of racism their children have seen in recent months.

During an interview on Candid with Kimberlei, Marsau spoke about an incident that happened in Troy, Michigan while leaving a worksite under development with M&M Pool Construction.

In one week, Marsau said he was arrested and pulled over several times.

“I was 18 years old, I jumped out of the car and threw my hat at the patrol car because I had enough and at that moment the cop had a decision to make at that point.”

Marsau said the control he exhibits on #LAHM is a behavior he had to learn in order to make it home to his family each night.

“What’s important to tell my son is that you can’t control the world, but you can control your world through your responses and that’s what’s critical in that moment. Bring my boy home alive, that’s not your fight on the side of the road!”

There are economic consequences for racial profiling Marsau

believes.

“I want my son to know that he doesn’t have a support system that would let injustices go unpunished,” he said. “That’s why we have Blaque, Uptown and Scholt, to have economic empowerment and businesses in our own communities.”

As the lady of AKA and Omega Man thought of a new development to offer young couples a reprieve for the everyday grind with a Harlem Night vibe, they settled on the idea of the Blaque Cigar Lounge.

The upscale venue #BlaqueIsTheNewBlack “...not only exemplifies ownership, but Black Excellence,” Marsau said.

where Black

“I don’t support Black businesses, I support Black Excellence,” he said. “I’m not here to buy a $50 shirt that says ‘Melanin;’ our community deserves something that they can be proud of.”

“Blaque has a relatively low cost of goods and we wanted to make sure that we had a business that could sustain its business model for a long period of time without spending a lot of capital and see profits realized without compromising the integrity of the business.”

Blaque is Marsau’s baby, LaTisha said, and it’s for “Us” - “A place where you can go celebrate, have a few cocktails and cigars and just be DOPE!” “It’s a place for an intelligent couple who are great at their jobs and kick ass in spades - it’s exclusive, without excluding.”

While midtown and downtown are being developed in most cities, uptown and urban areas are being forgotten or gentrified.

In his teens, Marsau saw that development was obtainable in the Black community and it could be done by us.

“People may see us on TV, but I want viewers to know that we are touchable and reachable and you can do exactly what we do if you work hard for it.”

To learn more about the Scotts, visit scholtindustries.com, blaquecigarlounge.com, and the Mommy Business platform at latishascott.com.

To watch the entire interview with the Scotts dishing on love and marriage catch the replay on @ candidwithkimberlei on Instagram.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 35

TM C F F E AT U R E

TMCF BLOOMBERG GIFTS MILLIONS TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF BLACK DOCTORS

BY DR. HARRY WILLIAMS

I

n September, former New York City mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg announced a historic $100 million gift to four Historically Black College and University medical schools – the inaugural investment of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative. Named for the historically Black Tulsa, Oklahoma neighborhood that was destroyed in the 1920’s racist massacre, the Initiative focuses on bridging racial inequities. This first gift demonstrates Mr. Bloomberg’s commitment to creating meaningful change over time.

Only 6% of America’s doctors are Black, even though 13% of the American population is, and only 8% of applicants to U.S. medical schools in 2019-20 were. Yet, Black doctors often practice in minority and underserved communities and may provide more effective care for minority patients. According to an Annals of Internal Medicine report, the top three medical schools producing primary physicians and/or doctors practicing in HSPAs (health profession shortage areas) were HBCUs: Morehouse College, Meharry Medical College, and Howard University. These schools educate 70% - 85% minority students in contrast to the 13.5% enrolled in all medical schools throughout the nation. Charles Drew University’s medical school was created to train community-minded doctors. Mr. Bloomberg’s investment will provide scholarship funds to support HBCU medical students who finance their professional education through loans.

A high level of community commitment – coupled with higher

36 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

student loan debt for African American medical students –are reasons why 60% of Black medical students default on student loans. Higher loan totals disproportionately erode a Black family’s ability to build wealth, and defaulting on those loans may prevent it totally, since a loan default or high loan-toincome ratio negatively impacts the ability to secure a mortgage at a low interest rate – the key to wealth accumulation for most Americans.

Mr. Bloomberg’s gift is a good start in ensuring that Black medical students become community focused doctors with long careers.

Evidence demonstrates that Black patients are more likely to visit, be honest with, and follow directives of Black doctors. Black mistrust of the majority medical establishment can be traced back to slavery, which denied personal ownership of a slave’s very body. This disparate treatment persisted in the ensuing years amid unauthorized medical experiments and research, including unequal access to health care. Black mortality rates from COVID-19, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and maternal and infant mortality continue to devastate the Black community.

The Center for Disease Control reveals that Blacks have greater rates than other races in each category and that they develop these diseases earlier and die younger, as was the case with actor Chadwick Boseman.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) understands that for Black Americans, sweeping changes are needed across the board. Supporting future doctors is a critical piece in solving this

puzzle – but there are other critical pieces too. For the past three years, TMCF’s Center for Advancing Opportunity (CAO) has partnered with Gallup to capture attitudes of fragile community members across the country, and an interesting correlation emerged. Prior to COVID-19, fragile community members’ perception of their own health tracked by socioeconomic status reveal that 43% of households earning less than $24,000 per year viewed their health as fair/poor, versus 22% for households earning $35,000 - $59,999. Before the pandemic, 58% of fragile community residents were satisfied with their access to healthcare, compared to 74% of Americans overall.

Yet these surveys revealed another key data point: those with lower education had higher co-morbidities. Overall, 48% of fragile community residents with less than a high school diploma reported they had high blood pressure, 32% had high cholesterol, 24% had diabetes, and 28% had depression. Those with a high school diploma fared slightly better: 39% reported high blood pressure, 28% high cholesterol, 19% diabetes, and 24% depression. A four-year college degree made a significant difference: 24% reported having high blood pressure, 16% high cholesterol, 8% diabetes, and 14% depression. We know that 87% of Black fragile community residents view a college education as important or very important, but only 28% of these Americans believe they have access to an affordable one.

Higher education leads to better jobs, better options, and better lifestyle choices, and for Black Americans, HBCUs provide the best opportunity to access and complete college for those who are low-income and first-generation. Each college degree changes the trajectory of an entire family, and is the best catalyst for moving Black Americans into the middle class permanently. Moreover, as Dr. Phillip L. Clay, the former provost at MIT noted in his

2012 Ford Foundation White Paper, HBCU students “place a higher value on community service, community leadership and civic and political engagement” than their non-HBCU peers.

They are the next generation of community leaders, who will positively impact the Black community.

We look forward to the next Greenwood Initiative announcement, turning Mr. Bloomberg’s personal commitment to addressing historic inequality for Black Americans into concrete, meaningful action. But he should not be alone. Several factors combine to reinforce racial inequities for Black Americans. Each needs to be addressed in order to sustainably change the reality for America’s Black community for the better.

Dr. Harry Williams is the President & CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. You can follow him on Twitter @DrHLWilliams.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 37

COVER STORY

ISIAH REESE:

M OGUL , E NT RE P R E N U E R A N D GA MI N G T I TAN

BY ERICKA BLOUNT

38 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

“IF WE C AN’T GO T O SI LI CON VA L L E Y, L E T’S BRI N G SI LI C O N VA L L E Y T O U S.”

C

EO Isiah Reese remembers his first job as a teen at the Sumter Career Technology Center in South Carolina.

His boss Mr. James, who was about 60 years old, was showing him how to put tarp on a roof. Mr. James’ hands were black with tar. As Mr. James watched Reese work, he had a realization and told him this isn’t the life for you.

“He wasn’t saying his life was bad,” remembers Reese by telephone. “He was just saying a lot of people marched so you could have a better education. I took that message as hard work pays off, use your brain; use your talents.”

Now, Reese is the CEO of Aperion Global Institute and Blaze Fire Games. He implores people to re-imagine education in a digital world as unemployment numbers increase and people are having to reinvent themselves or find ways to maintain their relevance.

One of the recent contracts his company garnered will involve training 300 teachers per year for the Head Start Program. Over 1,000 families will be trained and will be receiving certificates and micro credentialing.

“I was a Head Start child,” says Reese. “Why are we trying to work on math and science when our kids reach middle school, that’s too late for our kids.”

The company is also moving heavily into the gaming and Esports side of career pathways.

“It’s about continuing to create this pathway into high income fields,” says Reese. “Everyone thinks you have to be a gamer, but you can write a script for the back of a game, that’s a 12-week

certificate and a very high salary. We offer those certificates.”

“The pandemic sort of woke everyone up,” Reese says about the growing interest in micro credentialing. “All of a sudden online learning became the name of the game – it’s what we have been doing for years. It has brought companies like ours to the forefront.”

Reese works with HBCUs, like Benedict College in South Carolina, and has established a pipeline where students can earn a certificate while they’re in school in a dual enrollment program.

“If we can’t go to Silicon Valley, let’s bring Silicon Valley to us,” says Reese who recently trademarked My HBCU Got Esports Game and plans to launch a tour and virtual career fair working around 7 states that the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference covers.

“Counselors are not telling our kids you can get certified at Microsoft Office Suite in the 10th grade. That kid could start learning code,” says Reese. “As we look at the future, I’m committed to beating this message into everyone about micro credentialing and pipelining and having counselors realize not every child will go to college, but we can help them be sustainable.

Schools like Harvard and Michigan State have been running continuing education for years.”

“Online has no limits,” Reese continued. “I told our schools we’re not your competition, we are actually an extension of you. We can reach markets that you can’t because we are global. There are digital ways to drive revenue for your schools,” says Reese.

In 2008, when he first launched his continuing education program, people laughed at him.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 39

He and his sister, Lucille Reese – Burns, both graduated with master’s degrees (his sister for counseling and him for business management) on the same day. When he gained a digital marketing certification to stay relevant in the marketplace, he began to realize that certifications would eventually be valued as much as degrees.

“HBCUs were getting the short end of the stick when it came to companies recruiting,” Reese realized. “Companies said they were going to recruit, but they didn’t really dig in,” said Reese.

“How do you go to North Carolina A&T, by far the top school in engineering and computer science, and have a company say: ‘We couldn’t find anyone on campus.’”

He found that very few HBCUs offered continuing education certificates, forcing students who were interested to go to a predominantly white institution. He started Aperion Global Institute in hopes to close the education gaps and later Digital Change Institute to close the digital divide.

“We started looking at technology companies - Microsoft, Apple - and realized we need more people with coding certificates,” remembered Reese. Aperion is now in 164 countries with online learning courses, including gaming certificates and cyber security certificates.

And he’s continuously expanding, as the name “Aperion” would 40 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

suggest. When Reese found that people wanted to get into social justice issues he tapped his friend, Benjamin Crump, a renowned civil rights attorney who represented Trayvon Martin’s family.

Reese created the Benjamin Crump Social Justice Institute.

When Reese understood how often people were making music in their dorm rooms, among other entrepreneurial entertainment ventures, he reached out to his lawyer - Ricky Anderson - lawyer for Steve Harvey, Yolanda Adams, and Judge Mathis, among others, and created the Ricky Anderson Entertainment Law Institute.

Like Reese, Anderson understood the importance of HBCUs having graduated from Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Every year Reese speaks at the White House HBCU Week conference. His focus now is on the gaming industry and getting HBCUs up to speed. “If we don’t get into this industry on our campuses we will miss the next Facebook,” he said.

Reese has always focused on the journey rather than the destination. Every day he recites, by heart, Bishop T.D. Jakes’ sermon “Don’t You Quit” from Youtube.

He wrote a letter to himself at 19 saying that he was going to be a marketing sales executive and when he graduated from college he would own his own company. He wrote that one day he would

own enough companies so that he could hire people.

During his junior year at State he started going to barbershops around Orangeburg writing business and marketing plans for barbers for $5. “My mom couldn’t send me money, so that’s how I survived in school,” Reese remembers. He eventually started his own company as he made more and more money writing business plans. The name of the company was Speak 2 Me Communications LLC. Speak 2 Me eventually grew to 27 different companies, including Aperion (Aperion, was a word he learned when traveling in Madrid, that means continuous, unlimited, boundless).

He received straight A’s in marketing and graduated from State with honors. He went on to work for corporate America, first with Pepsi Co., then Coca Cola, and running billion-dollar accounts for Disney, all along learning the ropes and keeping an open mind. He learned about creating budgets, about how to hire and terminate people and how to build relationships on the job. He started to realize he still wanted to strike out on his own.

“I would have executive vice presidents say to me, ‘You could be my boss.’”

Now his sister is the COO of his parent company that represents either a majority stake or substantial equity ownership interest in more than a dozen global companies.

He had his mother retire 20 years ago and he was able to buy her a house in a neighborhood he once wished they could live in as a child.

Isiah Reese, CEO in partnership with Attorney Ricky Anderson Entertainment Lawyer, Attorney Ben Crump, Civil Rights, Beasley Media Esports, CheckpointX, GYO has “Gift” over several million dollars in education scholarship micro-credentialing courses; additionally, career pathway summer interns that has lead to many paid opportunities for HBCU students and alumnus.

At the Giving is Essential Gift Foundation, we are guided by a deep commitment to community service, create and expand, provide underserved communities with 21st Century tools and resources with the sole purposeful aim to create equitable opportunities for all.

“It’s just God and family. Nothing else matters,” says Reese.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 41

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HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 43

TAMEIKA ISAAC DIVINE: BUSINESS WOMAN, LAWYER AND ELECTED OFFICIAL

BY DR. MACIE SMITH

from Hampton University because of the program’s attractive curriculum.

S

o, who is Tameika Isaac Devine? A politician? A lawyer?

A business owner? An author? An award-winning community servant? HBCU Times had a chance to catch up with Mrs. Devine to find out the answers to these questions, but also to learn a bit more about the impact her HBCU experience has had on her thriving career. Devine tells HBCU Times that while she wears many hats; she first is a wife, mother, daughter, and a person of faith.

Tameika Isaac Devine was destined to be an HBCU alum because it was in her blood. Her grandparents attended an HBCU, Benedict College; and her parents met and married, and gave birth to her while attending an HBCU, Johnson C. Smith University; needless to say, HBCU was literally running warm in her veins.

As a young girl, Devine knew she wanted to attend an HBCU but it was just a matter of choosing the right one. She knew she wanted to be close enough to her parents to drive home, but not too close where they could pop up unannounced; I think we all know where she is coming from here. Because she knew she always wanted to be an attorney and she knew it would require a 4-year degree, she chose to attain a business management degree

44 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

In addition to the robust business management curriculum and the beauty of the campus near the water, Hampton was rich in history. Devine recounts the historical landmark on Hampton University’s campus where the Emancipation Proclamation was read. At the time, Devine did not realize that her attraction to Hampton’s history would be a fundamental piece in her developing an affinity for politics, which began to blossom while attending Hampton University.

As the first African American woman to be elected to Columbia, SC’s City Council and the first African American woman to be voted to an At-Large seat, Devine reminds us that while it’s nice to be the first, we should not rest our loins on being the only. As an elected official, Tameika Isaac Devine revealed that there is much more responsibility when you are the first and especially the first African American.

“There is a lot of responsibility. The responsibility is not only to do good but to understand why I have this platform and that it could be taken away...at any moment…while I am here…it’s not about Tameika…not about being the first…if you’re the first you should never be the only…”

Devine is very intentional and thoughtful about using her platform to help others in the most appropriate and effective manner possible, so that those who come after her can do more than what she has done.

Devine credits her success to her HBCU education and experience. She stated that attending Hampton University allowed her to learn more about who she is and trusting who she is. The invaluable experience at Hampton University gave her the ability to be comfortable with being “the only African American woman in the room and not have any of those psychological issues about being in that environment because I was uniquely prepared,” Devine said.

“An HBCU education is second to none. I know some people feel like if you choose to attend an HBCU instead of a PWI, then you are getting an inferior education. And I would say it’s actually the opposite; you are getting a superior education because of the premise behind the HBCUs…it’s not lost on them that the students they graduate will be competing on a global scale but still walk in a room as a person of color…you have to be armed with the superior education but also the soft skills.”

Devine stated that her HBCU experience gave her a great sense of confidence and that Black excellence became the norm.

She reminisced about the countless times visits were made to Hampton University by celebrities, such as Will Smith and Tim Reid, and the CEOs and Senior VPs of successful companies; she talked about the culture of community and the undeniable desire to give back.

“Although I knew it could be the norm, I don’t know if I truly believed it until I saw it in action at Hampton”.

And we are seeing it in action, too. Not only is Tameika Isaac Devine a successful Attorney at Law and Partner with Jabber & Isaac Law Firm, she is an elected community servant with the City of Columbia. She is showing up as a conscientious, thriving business-woman committed to helping busy moms lead the life God has designed for them through the Possibilities Institute, teaching strategies on how to balance home and work life. Devine also has started a podcast, A Devine Life, to extend her reach in meeting working moms where they are and teaching them how to harness their strength and to build the life they so desire.

Looking back, Devine credits her growth to Representative Gilda Cobb—Hunter, Marva Smalls, and her amazing mother, Veronica Isaac. Going forward, Devine plans to grow her Possibilities Institute into an 8-figure enterprise so that she can give back to the African American community to build health, wealth, and political and economic power. And just like everything else she has done in her life we know that she will succeed and exceed all expectations. Go Tameika!

Dr. Macie P. Smith is a Licensed Social Worker and Gerontologist with more than 20 of experience working with aging and vulnerable populations. Dr. Smith is the CEO of Diversified Training Consultants Group, a Geriatric Care Management group that promotes quality education and training for health and human services practitioners. She also is the author of A Dementia Caregiver’s Guide to Care.

Dr. Smith has published several peer-reviewed journals and newspaper articles geared towards strengthening senior and blended families.

She recently won the Golden Pen by the Post & Courier Newspaper for her Letter to the Editor urging state leaders to re-open nursing homes to family caregivers to provide emotional support to seniors.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 45

AUBREY JACKSON: MEDIA PROFESSIONAL, LIFESTYLE AND TRAVEL BLOGGER

BY KIMBERLEI DAVIS

‘On a hilltop high’ is where Aubrey notes that her confidence that was tucked away took flight.

“We come from a society where you grow accustomed to being the one or two in the room and then you go to a place where everyone looks like you - it’s a different type of tribe feeling.”

Attending an HBCU is an experience, it’s family, she said.

W

hether she’s giving you tips on how to remain calm during chaos or dishing on the lessons she’s learned before turning 30 on her life and style blog, sosouthernbelle.com, Aubrey Jackson is showing up for life in a major way.

Aubrey is the virtual BFF you always knew you needed after many failed follows to get a boost of inspiration.

12.5K+ Instagramers absorb the Claflin University Panther’s fresh take on digital content @AubreyOnAir; this doesn’t include her large following on her series Millennial Mindset and Hey Girl Hey. Aubrey’s travels have taken her around the country and as a daughter of two retired Navy Veterans she’s seen the world twice over; however, this well-versed millennial knew that an HBCU was going to be her destination when it came to education.

“My mom is an unofficial recruiter for Claflin,” she quipped.

“She’s gotten so many people including family members and neighbors, to understand the greatness that is Claflin.”

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While most Historically Black Colleges and Universities have cancelled or scaled back homecoming festivities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, let’s be real, pre-COVID every day was homecoming..

Aubrey said, going back to homecomings at CU is like Thanksgiving, “It’s beautiful.”

“You have a chance to reconnect with friends, sorors, and professors who helped you along the way.”

Aubrey’s love for HBCUs originated with her older sister who hails from Voorhees College.

Through her early experiences of visiting Tiger nation in Denmark, a young Aubrey told her parents, “I’m going to be on the yard, I’m going to join this club and I’m going to be an AKA.” “What’s that?!” was her parents’ response.

The adventurer saw many things she spoke manifest while earning her communications degree at Claflin, like joining the Gamma Nu Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Her soror, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) broke multiple glass ceilings when she was announced as former Vice President Joe

Biden’s running-mate for the White House.

comes in.”

It’s going to take the entire Divine 9 plus millions more to turnout to the polls in November.

Aubrey is now dedicated to sharing her knowledge as a media consultant, with entrepreneurs and business owners looking to perfect their pitch and have their stories and brands shared in digital and local media.

“I hate when I hear people say ‘I’m not voting’ or ‘My voice isn’t being heard, it’s not going to make a difference,”’ Aubrey said.

“Look at and vote during your local elections just as you would the general election, they’re just as important.”

The country isn’t experiencing the excitement of 2008, “where people were hopeful, everyone was on the same page and came together to believe in something so amazing- it was magical.”

“We need to rally ourselves together again,” she said. “If you want the America you know we can be then that should be the common denominator and reason to get out and vote.”

You may have seen Aubrey working on-air as an entertainment reporter and morning news anchor in some of the top markets in the country, now she offers this advice to students, “Explore all facets. Don’t limit yourself to one role or one area of expertise, use your college years to diversify and expose yourself to the various positions within media and find what’s most fulfilling.”

“My own securities early on in my media journey was that I could only be this particular thing.”

“It’s not about the brand, it’s about the story. It’s not about the headline, it’s about the message.”

Aubrey said she is finding true purpose in this new lane of communication.

It’s a purpose, that’s also evidenced in other entrepreneurial endeavors.

Spreading the power of #selfcare, Aubrey’s PositiviTees t-shirt line encourages celebrating melanin.

Being young, gifted and Black is an amazing feeling, but that feeling can fade when others don’t view you the same way.

2020, you’ve been a beast so far and many Black journalists have had to report on this tumultus year with a large emphasis on communities we call home.

“Being Black in the newsroom is different for everyone, but given the current climate, I urge all journalists of color to speak up and be heard. People, execs, the world is listening to us!”

Aubrey quickly learned that she was not just a force on-camera, but always pulled weight when it came to producing, editing and directing.

On a recent trip to Bali, Aubrey was able to reflect on 2019 and the “difficulties and necessary growth” that occurred.

Her early skill sets began at Claflin with guidance from everyone from her professors to the staff in the cafe, but her best career moment began in the Big Apple.

“It ignited my self-care journey and my resolve that I wasn’t going to let anything or anybody get in the way of me experiencing something new and something different.”

The South Carolina native did an internship with Good Morning America and before she could unpack her suitcase she was asked to interview Tyra Banks during a press stop to promote the upcoming season of America’s Next Top Model.

On her solo adventure to the Indonesian island known for its beaches and meditation retreats, Aubrey connected with a Black travel group.

“I just landed home and they needed me the next day… I told my mom… she gave me her blessing and I was on a flight right back to NYC for the opportunity,” she said. “That experience proved that you should apply for anything that excites you because you never know who’s watching and be ready to roll when the call

It was a time of self-reflection where she was able to look in and not out.

Aubrey encourages readers to “find the value in every positive and negative interaction, the universe will take care of what’s to be, just be positive during the process.”

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 47

PROTECT BLACK WOMEN, BUT UNDERSTAND US FIRST

BY AMORI WASHINGTON

A

Artwork by Ortega Missouri

s we impatiently experience hours, days, and now months of no charges nor arrests in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, the reality of layered discrimination permeates our society. While we remain committed to the fight for justice for Breonna, the concept of intersectionality, the ways our different identities intersect and disadvantage us, highlights Black women, who combat both racism and sexism on a daily basis. Because this reality holds true for nearly all Black women, the conversation cannot be solely isolated to the issue of police brutality. It is necessary to uncover multiple layers of oppression

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to understand what it truly means to protect Black women in America.

Before further exploring the ways in which Black women have been disadvantaged, it is imperative to acknowledge our elite accomplishments. Across both racial and gender lines, Black women hold the highest percentage of enrollment and completion at institutions of higher learning (Thought Co). While we have undoubtedly established our stake in academic and professional success, negative imagery of Black women in mass media has not

only proven to be hurtful, but also detrimental to our well-being and safety.

According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research’s Status of Black Women in the United States, Black women are 2.5 times more likely to be murdered by a man than white women, with over 50% of those murders committed by a current or previous romantic partner. And perhaps the most triggering statistic, 92% of those killings are committed by Black men (Blackburn Center). Often, for Black women, there is a threat in multiple environments, and this begins at the earliest stages of life.

The awareness of our intersectional identity begins at the time of girlhood. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique W. Morris exposes policies and practices within school environments that push young Black girls into unsafe situations such as the increased likelihood of being suspended in comparison to their white counterparts. Throughout the country, the school systems we entrust to educate, nurture, and aid in the development of our girls is contributing to their endangerment.

After completing grade school, Black girls, now women, often encounter discrimination in a new environment, the workplace.

While many Black people experience microaggressions in professional spaces, a common experience among Black women is hair discrimination. Although efforts such as the Crown Act, created in 2019 by Dove and the Crown Coalition, work to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles, currently hair discrimination is legal in all states except for seven.

Additionally, it is not uncommon for a professional environment to create an atmosphere where many Black women refrain from wearing their hair in a style that will draw too much “attention” or changing their hair within the same week or even month, out of fear of uncomfortable interactions with co-workers.

Even within our own community, we often face ridicule for wearing weaves or if our natural hair does not meet a certain length or texture standard. Beyond hair, Black women experience intra-community rejection due to colorism and phenotype discrimination. Our image is literally erased and replaced by non-Black or biracial women who better “fit” the appropriate standard of beauty or obtain every ounce of the aesthetic of a Black woman, except for her identity.

While we are permitted to release our magic when appropriate, we are also repeatedly challenged to uphold the “correct” image of the Black woman. We cannot be loud, unless we are protesting racism or police brutality, while our bodies and identities are ‘policed’ by those closest to us. With the duty to be a “strong, black woman” from girlhood, we are unable to express vulnerability, to embrace our softer side, that although caring and even maternal, is one that requires protection.

Protecting a Black woman means speaking up to defend her whenever necessary, celebrating her in every shade, texture and form, and loving her beyond any and all flaws. So, while remaining in the fight for justice for Breonna Taylor, do not solely think of the discrimination she faced at the time of her death; think of the daily battle she fought while simply existing in her body. To all people, especially members of the Black community, in the case of Black women, don’t wait to protect us, once we’re already gone.

Amori graduated from Claflin University in 2018 with a B.A. in Professional English, and a minor in Spanish. Serving as an undergraduate writing tutor for 3 years, she worked collaboratively with fellow peer tutors and researched writing center pedagogy in order to best assist collegelevel writers. While enrolled in graduate school, Amori started ASW Editing & Writing Consulting to assist students, professionals, and creatives in developing and improving various types of writing projects. In December of 2019, Amori earned her M.Ed in English Language Learners (TESOL) from Vanderbilt University, where she served as a graduate writing center consultant and editorial assistant for Urban Education: SAGE Journal. Currently, Amori teaches ESL Writing Composition at ZMB Jinling High School in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. When she is not editing or teaching, Amori enjoys dancing, trying out new recipes, and traveling with friends and family.

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P O WE R A L U M N I

DR. BYRON FORD

D

r. Byron Ford is Associate Dean of Medical Education and Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of California-Riverside (UCR) School of Medicine.

Prior to joining UCR in 2015, he was professor and Vice Chairman in the Department of Neurobiology at the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). Dr. Ford received his B.S. degree from Grambling State University, Ph.D. degree from Meharry Medical College and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ford served as a Senior Staff Scientist at NIH before joining the faculty at MSM. Dr. Ford’s laboratory has studied mechanisms of neuroprotection and inflammatory mediators in ischemic stroke for over 20 years. He has been the recipient of NIH and DoD grants to investigate the neuroprotective roles of neuregulin-1 (NRG-1) in stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), cerebral malaria and as a countermeasure for nerve agent exposure. His work has yielded nine full U.S. patents and several additional patent applications. Dr. Ford was a member of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Advisory Council at NIH from 2012-2016.

Dr. Ford has been involved with professional undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral student training for over 20 years and has been directly involved in the training of 10 postdoctoral fellows, 23 graduate/medical students and over 100 undergraduate students. In 2017, Dr. Ford received a grant from the NIH Bridges to the Baccalaureate (B2B) Program, which was established between UCR and Riverside City College (RCC) to create a research education program to facilitate transfer of diverse RCC students into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors. Dr. Ford also received a University of California-Historically Black Colleges and Universities (UCHBCU) Initiative grant that was funded in 2020 by the UC Office of the President. The goal of the program is to improve diversity and strengthen UC graduate programs by investing in relationships between UC faculty and HBCUs. The threeyear grant is a partnership with Morehouse College, Spelman College, the Morehouse School of Medicine, and Fort Valley State University in Georgia.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 51

P O WE R A L U M N I

DR. WAKEENA NOLAN DICKENS

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r. Wakeena Nolan Dickens is a native of Washington, D.C. and Prince County, MD. Her parents laid a solid foundation early on of community service and education, where it would later be the cornerstone of her life. She began cultivating her leadership skills in high school where she was the founder and president of a young women’s mentorship program at Suitland High school called the Daughters of Nandi. The Daughters of Nandi was a community based service organization that focused on leadership, sisterhood, and developing young women’s self-esteem. The group was branded with the motto of focused, determined, and dedicated, which would become the motto Dr. Dickens lives by. At the end of her final year of high school and leadership of the Daughters of Nandi, Dr. Dickens was recruited by Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Herman Franklin at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), at an end-of-year awards ceremony where she gave her final president’s address. Dr. Franklin quickly recognized her academic astuteness and leadership skills and offered her matriculation at the beautiful HBCU campus of UMES. Dr. Dickens majored in the biology re-medicine program and earned a full ROTC scholarship graduating with honors as a commissioned officer in the United States Army.

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After honorably serving as a Transportation Captain in the United States Army and earning a Master of Science in Healthcare Administration in 2003, Dr. Dickens moved on into a career in healthcare. She was promoted quickly throughout her healthcare administration and technology career working in senior level areas across the country in patient care administration, HIPAA compliance, health systems training, health informatics, and program management. She also served three years at Grantham University as an Adjunct Professor in the Health Sciences undergraduate and Health Systems graduate programs where she was spotlighted her first few months as “Faculty of the Month.”

Early in her healthcare career Dr. Dickens earned a Doctor of Management and Organizational Leadership specializing in Information Systems and Technology degree. She currently serves as the principle advisor of knowledge management to executive joint staff military officers for a large-scale health systems initiative.

Dr. Dickens is happily married with three bonus children and co-owns a catering business with her wonderful husband, Chef Darius O. Dickens. She is also an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. located in Woodbridge, Virginia.

P O WE R A L U M N I

DEAN BROWNE C. LEWIS

A

prolific legal scholar, Dean Lewis researches in the areas of artificial intelligence, assisted reproductive technology, environmental racism, and inheritance law.

Her scholarship has appeared in prominent law reviews. She is the author of two books, Papa’s Baby: Paternity and Artificial Insemination (New York University Press) and The Ethical and Legal Consequences of Posthumous Reproduction: Arrogance, Avarice and Anguish (Routledge Publishing). Her most recent book on death and dying is forthcoming from Edward Elgar Publishing Company. She is one of the editors and a contributing author of Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Trusts and Estates Opinions (forthcoming Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Dean Lewis is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the Board of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI). She has received several prestigious national and international awards. Dean Lewis has been a visiting scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and The Hasting Center. While a visiting researcher at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, Dean Lewis conducted research on physician-assisted suicide. As a Senior Fulbright Specialist, she lectured and conducted research at Haifa University and Hebrew University in Israel. Dean Lewis was a Core Fulbright Scholar at King’s College in the United Kingdom. After being one of only six law professors selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Public Health Law Scholar, she worked with the Cleveland Public Health Department to study the public health consequences of allowing minors to purchase small cigars.

Dean Lewis has made numerous national and international presentations. She has presented at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Harvard Law School. Dean Lewis has been a guest lecturer at the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Rome, Italy and Prague, Czech Republic, the World Congress on Bioethics, Medical Ethics and Health Law in Jerusalem, Israel and Limassol, Cyprus, and the New Zealand Bioethics Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand.

In 2016, she had the honor of delivering a Gresham College Lecture in Central London, England.

Dean Lewis graduated number one in her class from Grambling State University. Prior to attending law school, she received summer fellowships to study at Carnegie-Mellon University, the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Dean Lewis started her professional career as a statistician and ADR trainer at the Conflict and Change Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In her free time, Dean Lewis writes fiction, paints, learns computer languages, and plays the piano.

HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue | 53

P O WE R A L U M N I

ALIYAH DAVIS

A

liyah Davis is a Kingdom trendsetter for her generation and proud alumna of the Florida A&M University.

During her time at this prestigious university, she served as senate secretary and the university liaison for the School of Journalism and Graphic Design.

At the age of 10 she discovered her deep love for people and storytelling. Davis, also a former journalist, has worked with a host of networks like CNN, CBS & FOX. While at CNN, she strategized on how to dive into her God-given gift of marketing. She helped anchors enhance their personal brands to be seen and established their social media presence while assisting with the production and guests for the newscast.

She believes it was the HBCU connections that added to the experience that would change her life forever.

In January 2020, Aliyah combined her love for media and people to build her very own marketing empire, Unleash.Co. Through her company she helps individuals & ministries worldwide 54 | HBCU Times 2021 Winter Issue

UNLEASH & maximize their purpose to impact their generation and the world.

She also dedicates her time to helping millennials grow in their spiritual journey & purpose while serving as a leader of weekly prayer and empowerment calls.

She has been featured and has represented the HBCU community on many stages like Google’s HBCU Night where she discussed the importance of attending an HBCU and its lifelong rewards.

Aliyah credits God first for His Divine Providence and ordering her steps through a life changing experience that has helped to build her faith and confidence as a leader.

She lives by the philosophy, “It’s not enough to be a local hero, you must say how can I impact my generation?” and attending one of the nation’s top ranked HBCUs, has allowed her to do so.

Instagram: Aliyahontv | Facebook: Aliyah Davis

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