Are Black Colleges Suffering From Old Leadership?

Black colleges across the country are suffering from old leadership. I graduated from a historically black college in the nineties. As the years passed us by, and times changed, the school itself didn’t mature or grow with the times. Year after year new students arrive on campus with the high hopes of achieving the best education possible at the collegiate level. Truth be told, black college students may be getting the worst education, from some historically black instructions. Due to many schools lack of funding, lack of technology, outdated professors, no commitment from Alumni, and lack of continued education at black colleges, many up and coming students may be less equipped to handle the new global economy.

Technology at Black Instructions 

The technology at many black instructions is far behind their white counterparts. Social Media pages are out of date, old computers have slow processors, and many schools just plain don’t know how to fit into the digital space. Black Colleges are losing at a rapid pace with the ever changing frequency of technology. Many schools are not using their incoming classes to help push the school into the twenty first centuries as a competitive place to get an education. The Black College experience online is diminishing, due to a lack of technically savvy students, who should be being put in place to man the ship, and help push the community of black scholars forward.

Lack of Alumni Support at Black Colleges 

Once students graduate from black colleges a large majority of them are gone for good. I, myself, am at fault, as well for not reaching back and giving my dollars, and or time to the college I graduated from. Most college graduates, in my humble opinion,  have no real loyalty to their black colleges unless its football season or basketball season. When the sports teams are playing or some holiday event is in session we’re all in. But, when the lights go out, we go back to our perspective regions and continue living life as normal. The black college staff is just as much at fault as the graduates themselves, for not being drilled with the “Each One Teach One” concept that helped make the institutions great in the first place. Giving our dollars and cents is just the first step to helping bring about a stronger base for our coming generations. However, it is not drilled into most of the alumni to give back to the place from which they graduated from. Schools like Tuskegee, Spelman, and Morehouse have strong alumni support while other schools fall by the waste side. Black Colleges have to do better about pushing the alumni to support their schools.

Out Dated Professors at Black Colleges 

As the world turns so does the people in it, and college professors are no exception to the rule. Many college professors have been around for so long, that they are not abreast, of what’s going on outside the classroom from which they teach. And who knows how professional development is handled on the collegiate level for professors at black colleges. Many students are getting old ideologies from some professors who have been teaching since the seventies and as a result, it hurts the student in my opinion. The world is moving so fast that information is being exchanged at the highest level from the Pentagon to NASA, and even Silicon Valley where the innovators are located. Most black institutions are at the bottom of the food chain. Are we turning out students who are creating new industries? Or are we turning out graduates who are going to work for the innovators like Amazon? Black College professors should be evaluated to be able to keep up with the demand of the global economy. You can’t teach new students outdated information and expect them to excel in a world that doesn’t even acknowledge the information. Black Colleges really need to take a look at the professors who are lagging behind, along with their outdated curriculums.

No Commitment to Continued Education at Black Colleges 

 When most students graduate from black colleges they look forward to going to white colleges to further their education. Black College students feel a sense of pride when they attend an Auburn, University of Alabama, Ohio St., or some other big time white institution as if they have finally arrived at the pearly gates of heaven.  Postgraduate students loyalty to black colleges are null in void. Wearing that Oklahoma Sooners Sweatshirt versus wearing an Alabama State University sweatshirt gives some black collegiates a sense of pride that they have a stake in the institutions they attend. When I was in high school, I wanted to attend Georgetown and Syracuse University to play basketball, because they were the best schools in the country. Now, you can’t pay me to step onto any campus that doesn’t support black college students or their causes. When you graduate from a black college, and then move onto a white institution, your helping to increase the economic progress of that institution. If we had more graduates get a post-secondary education at black colleges that would help the economic progress of those institutions. So, commitment and continued education are important, to the survival of black colleges as a whole.

 Closing Remarks

In closing, black colleges are a dying species due to the old psychologies that have been passed down from generation to generation. The board of trustees and advisors at black institutions have to be rewired to see a new landscape, and a new horizon of what black colleges can become without financial support from President Trump. New and old resources have to be put in place, that will allow the school to be competitive in the long run, against schools who have endowment funds in the millions of dollars like a Harvard or a Yale for example. We have to as they say in economics “make our dollars bounce eight to ten times” on campuses across the country,  so the money can be trickled back into the classroom to advance our educational causes. If we don’t we will perish and I mean all black colleges will perish !!!