UNCF authors report urging partnership between K-12 and HBCUs
3rd February 2020 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
A recent report and corresponding conference by the United Negro College Fund proposing stronger relationships and student mentoring between HBCUs and K-12 school systems included heavy involvement from New Orleans’ own historically Black colleges and universities.
The UNCF’s policy paper, entitled, “Imparting Wisdom: HBCU Lessons for K-12 Education,” was put forth by the Fund’s Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute last month and detailed ways that best practices used by tradition-rich HBCU’s to achieve success can be applied to K-12 school systems to encourage youth of color to not only excel in their younger years, but also attend HBCU’s as a way to continue their education.
“We really wanted to learn from HBCUs that have had success educating large numbers of students,” Dr. Meredith Anderson, UNCF senior research associate and co-author of “Imparting Wisdom,” told The Louisiana Weekly.
“We wanted to uplift strategies from the best practices of HBCUs and apply them on K-12 education,” Dr. Anderson added. “We wanted to merge the two, which was the impetus behind the report.”
A key part of that goal, Dr. Anderson said, is “strengthening the pipeline of students” from K-12 into HBCUs and “further[ing] the education trajectory of students.”
The HBCU best practices listed in the report included as guideposts for K-12 systems include cultivating nurturing support systems; leveraging Black culture and traditions; and setting high expectations and ambitious goals for which students can strive.
“The education disparities that exist between African American children and other children is well-documented,” the report states. “HBCUs have a documented history of success with many of the same students who often leave the nation’s secondary schools ill-equipped to maximize their college experience.”
The paper outlines the disparities in achievement and level of education – such as graduation rates and standardized-test scores between African-American students and the rest of the population. It notes that although there has been improvement in such guideposts over the last several years, the systemic challenges, stereotypes and lack of support still provide significant obstacles and discouragement for many students of color.
“… [O]pportunity gaps often perpetuate these systematic disparities – African American students are more likely than any other student group to be enrolled in schools with inexperienced and less-qualified teachers, have less access to rigorous courses and are more likely to receive harsher exclusionary discipline infractions than white students,” it reported.
The release of the UNCF report was followed by a nationwide symposium discussing the positive impact HBCUs can have on K-12 students and their career and life goals. The 2020 HBCU and K-12 Summit was held January 21 at UNCF headquarters in Washington, D.C., and drew participants from various HBCUs across the country, including a local representative, Xavier University of Louisiana’s Kenya Kennedy Campbell.
As director of Xavier’s Norman C. Francis Teacher Residency Program, Campbell is directly involved in bringing the knowledge established and applied in HBCUs to the rest of the education community, including helping teachers encourage and nurture their students. Campbell said the summit served as an excellent place to exchange information, network with other educators and work toward achieving HBCU/K-12 symbiosis.
“Because HBCUs and K-12 schools [with a large percentage of people of color] operate in the same space, they can learn from each other, Campbell told The Louisiana Weekly.
She said that HBCUs can transfer their best academic practice to K-12 students, “so they can be prepared to go to college at historically Black colleges and universities.”
Campbell said that in addition to adding to the ranks of Black teachers and other educators of color in classrooms, it’s also vital to encourage professionals – ideally HBCU products themselves – to become guidance counselors and advisors in K-12 schools. By having counselors who can personally relate to youth and empathize with the challenges facing Black students, more youth can be encouraged to look into, visit and eventually attend HBCUs.
In addition to the role Campbell played at the January summit, the “Imparting Wisdom” report includes spotlight descriptions of different, successful programs created and cultivated at Xavier and at Dillard University, New Orleans’ other private HBCU.
The profile of Xavier details the Norman C. Francis Teaching Residency Program led by Campbell. The NCFTRP pairs master’s-level Xavier students with a mentor educator and places the grad students in charter schools around the city to provide them intimate, hands-on experience in working with K-12 youth.
The Dillard program highlighted in “Imparting Wisdom” involves pre-law Dillard students with a career and course advisor throughout the young adults’ tenure on campus, a process that concludes with law school admission workshops, and the student’s advisor assisting them in their search for and applications to law programs.
Because of the success of the Dillard program, the UNCF report recommends that K-12 schools apply and adapt the same type of student-adviser relationships that can closely guide younger students with a continual, committed support and advising presence as they progress through high school.
“While I am certainly not a life coach, my style is more intrusive than the average pre-law adviser,” Adria Kimbrough, a pre-law advisor at Dillard, states in the report. “I help students work through any area that stands between them and law school. Sometimes the issue is academic, but other times it is social, financial or emotional. I have found that responding to the whole student is the most effective way to advise. Investing in advising relationships with students can reap significant benefits later.”
Dr. Anderson told The Louisiana Weekly that he and his fellow researchers identified the Dillard pre-law program early on in their study, saying that the program “brings out the best in students.” He added that “Dillard offered an important example of how K-12 can learn a lot about high-quality advising” efforts.
“Imparting Wisdom” highlighted efforts at several other HBCUs across the country, including Benedict College in Columbia, S.C.; Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C.; Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio; and Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark.
Dr. Anderson noted that most, if not all, of the individual HBCUs cited in the report could be considered “small colleges.” He stressed that while large, public universities such as Louisiana’s Grambling State and Southern Universities, have and can play a significant role in the goals outlined in the report, smaller, private institutions can provide their own unique input toward the “Imparting Wisdom” concept.
Added Dr. Anderson, “We wanted to highlight a few specific examples of establishing reciprocal relationships [between HBCUs and K-12s] and two-way partnerships.”
Ideally, Campbell said, the lessons exchanged at last month’s summit and embodied on the “Imparting Wisdom” report can be brought back and applied in New Orleans, which has both a rich tradition of HBCU education and a k-12 system featuring a large percentage of students of color who are navigating the challenges posed and opportunities offered by the Orleans Parish School Board’s progressive, comprehensive rebranding post-Katrina.
“It’s a great opportunity for New Orleans to help New Orleans send more Black kids to college,” Campbell said.
The conclusion of “Imparting Wisdom” asserts that the myriad groundbreaking, successful mentoring, advising and education efforts established by HBCUs across the nation can, with a little effort and creativity, be adapted and contextualized for K-12 programs everywhere.
“HBCUs have a culture of innovation – another lesson for the K-12 community – and testing possible solutions to eliminate the country’s persistent educational disparities does not indicate failure, but a willingness to go above and beyond for students,” it states. “As such, we urge the HBCU and K-12 communities to implement practical, yet innovative, strategies that will improve the trajectory of students along the P-20 pipeline. In addition to the examples listed throughout the report, the following action items encompass tangible strategies to help foster greater collaboration and partnerships between the K-12 and HBCU communities.”
“It’s about having more conversations and being more intentional about showing what HBCUs do and getting more information to youth who might not normally consider HBCUs for college,” Campbell added.
This article originally published in the February 3, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
