Fearing the future for HBCUs
Fearing the future for HBCUs
By Johnathan Holifield
I’m not a product of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Although a proud West Virginia University Mountaineer, like many Black Americans – I have much love for our HBCUs.
Recently, I concluded service to my alma mater as an Advisory Committee member for Eberly College of Arts and Sciences – the college from which I graduated. This experience, supported by others, has ignited well-founded fears for the future of many HBCUs.
The Eberly College Advisory Committee was a diverse collection of highly accomplished professionals from various disciplines, including business, government, research, commercialization, entrepreneurship and myriad areas of academe. We were fortunate to have been led by quality deans who embraced our involvement in the affairs of the college. In fact, two former deans are sitting university presidents and the current dean is fast making his mark at the university.
I greatly enjoyed my tenure on the Advisory Committee. It was exciting and challenging to seriously consider 21st century innovation and competitiveness issues confronting Eberly College and WVU, and to contribute insights that are informed by my own Innovation Economy leadership experience.
My service also was greatly enhanced by the accident of good timing. In the last few years, a new president and provost have arrived at WVU and a new dean was selected for Eberly College. These senior leadership changes coincided with the symmetry of university-wide, 10-year strategic planning that builds toward the year 2020. This combination of factors produced a welcomed opportunity to quickly and considerably expand my knowledge of higher education in the Innovation Economy.
University Technology Transfer
Participating in the strategic planning process, several of my ideas were affirmed and clarified, and others proved to have little efficacy. An item of special interest was our thoughtful consideration of technology transfer. Eberly College viewed technology transfer as a progression of broadly defined basic and applied research fueling the discovery process, leading to intellectual property creation and, ultimately, resulting in new commercial products. Robust technology transfer functions can measurably help universities meet their well-settled goals of optimum social and economic impacts.
During our review of technology transfer, my thinking and reflection was along two complementary tracks – how the matter impacts Eberly College, WVU and the people of West Virginia and how it impacts Black America and our beloved HBCUs.
Though I’ve had rewarding experiences building productive university partnerships, only recently have I had the pleasure to connect with HBCUs. Fresh from taking up 21st century issues facing higher education, I realized that while those issues are challenging, they surely will be conquered – but the issues facing HBCUs are acute, with a future TBD.
Tale of Two University Systems … It was the best of times
University research and technology transfer are powerful engines driving the Innovation Economy. According to the December 2010 “The Better World Report,” by the Association of University Technology Managers, in 30 years of the Bayh-Dole Act, which gave U.S. universities ownership and control over intellectual property resulting from their research, the following impacts have been realized:
▪ More than 6,000 new U.S. companies
(in fiscal year 2009, 596 new companies were formed, one more than the 595 formed in 2008 and 41 more than the 555 formed in 2007);
▪ 4,350 new university licensed products in the market;
▪ 5,000 active university-industry licenses in effect, mostly with small companies;
▪ More than 153 new drugs, vaccines or in vitro devices have been commercialized;
▪ Between 1996 and 2007 university patent licensing made:
- a $187 billion impact on the U.S. gross domestic product,
- a $457 billion impact on U.S. gross industrial output, and
- 279,000 new jobs in the United States.
In important ways … It was the worst of times
HBCUs are a national treasure. According to the United Negro College Fund, the nation’s HBCUs contribute to the Innovation Economy in many ways, including:
▪ Graduate more than 50 percent African American professionals.
▪ Graduate more than 50 percent of African American public school teachers.
▪ Graduate 70 percent of African American dentists.
▪ 50 percent of African Americans who graduate from HBCUs go on to graduate schools or professional schools.
▪ HBCUs award more than one in three of the degrees held by African Americans in natural sciences.
▪ HBCUs award one-third of the degrees held by African Americans in mathematics.
However, despite these major contributions, in the areas where universities are significant forces propelling the Innovation Economy – the discovery process, e.g., basic and applied research, commercialization and technology transfer – HBCUs are conspicuously absent. The following are select, deeply troubling statistics about HBCU performance:
▪ HBCUs account for less than 1 percent of total academic research and development expenditures
▪ HBCUs account for just over 1 percent of federal academic research and development expenditures
▪ Of more than 200 colleges and universities ranked by the Carnegie Foundation as “high” and “very high” research activity only one is a HBCU
The extraordinarily compelling story of HBCUs is undermined in the 21st century by the absence of a robust academic research infrastructure. Such infrastructure is needed to realize commercialization and technology transfer opportunities that can generate much bigger Innovation Economy impact and draw new resources to the institutions.
Key Developments
For that reason, I wish to add my voice to the emerging chorus of HBCU supporters who want to see these treasures not only survive, but thrive in this century. Interpreted and repurposed from my experience with Eberly College, I offer for consideration four key developments that will influence prospects for Innovation Economy success at HBCUs:
- Discovery Process: HBCU discovery processes should be broadly defined to include scholarly work in humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Embracing the inter/multidisciplinary nature of the 21st century discovery process will be a key to growing HBCU contributions to our nation’s economic and social well-being. Additionally, bridge-building across disciplines can bring teams of investigators/researchers together to solve complex problems and provide more time and support to research active faculty who are needed to unlock HBCUs’ full research potential.
- Technology Transfer: HBCU technology transfer strategies should emphasize growth of basic, applied and inter/multidisciplinary research. Without robust basic research inputs, it is impossible to realize meaningful commercial outputs. Building off of basic applied research leads to patents, licenses and startup companies. And inter/multidisciplinary research is the only approach that can meet our daunting national and global challenges.
- Alignment: There remains an outstanding question about how much of current HBCU research is aligned with U.S. government thrusts and industry priorities. HBCUs should work to better position themselves for opportunities within the current research climate by significantly strengthening both their basic and applied research portfolio, with laser focus on research thrusts that reflect the nation’s public and private sector concerns.
- Innovation Ecosystem: All HBCUs cannot become research powerhouses. However, innovation ecosystems are dynamic life cycles and within them are major roles to be assumed, opportunities to be realized and contributions to be made for non-research institutions. Opportunities include facilitating high-growth entrepreneur and enterprise development, acting as a connecting portal, i.e., a best point of entry, to regional and state innovation ecosystems – and leveraging that connectivity to optimum impact for society and themselves.
The future of HBCUs
I am aware that HBCU consideration of these offerings will be limited. Many simply do not have a tradition of externally funded academic research, which feeds the discovery process and leads to technology transfer. The situation is exacerbated, in similar ways to many majority institutions, as HBCU faculty tend to carry large responsibilities in classroom teaching and service, resulting in fewer research opportunities.
As a national matter, it can be difficult to have a thoughtful dialogue about the future of HBCUs. The subject is filled with social and cultural sensibilities and fraught with wide-ranging political complexities.
All told, however, to meet the needs of the 21st century, our HBCUs must continually evolve – designing, adopting and inculcating a new education and economic paradigm that attracts more investments and yields much more Innovation Economy impacts.
Perhaps, at stake is nothing less than the survival of many of these prized institutions.
Johnathan Holifield, Trim Tabber
Jonathan Holifield once again your writings sound great as “theory,” but putting it into “practice” is impossible. YOU’RE writing about HBCU’s and you have NEVER attended a HBCU. As you pointed out you attended UWV, I would have to say the same would be said of state universities, when compared to ivy league colleges. YOUR endowment is not big enough, you teach to the masses, so it’s covering the average. To drive my point, what I am saying is. THIS article should be written by someone who has attended both a HBCU and traditionally white college or university (TWCU). Your perspective is skewed.
Mr. Mitchell:
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative reply. I enjoyed reading it.
In fact, it’s hard to see where we disagree. My closing key development states, “All HBCUs cannot become research powerhouses. However, innovation ecosystems are dynamic life cycles and within them are major roles to be assumed, opportunities to be realized and contributions to be made for non-research institutions. Opportunities include facilitating high-growth entrepreneur and enterprise development, acting as a connecting portal, i.e., a best point of entry, to regional and state innovation ecosystems – and leveraging that connectivity to optimum impact for society and themselves.”
I believe that is the key. Some HBCUs have the opportunity to significantly grow their research infrastructure, but all HBCUs (as well as “white” institutions”) have to be viable components in local and regional innovation ecosystems, which connect up to the national and global innovation ecosystems. In the Innovation Economy, this is an absolute must.
Thanks again for such a thoughtful post.
Trim Tabber
The article is most interesting but it speaks to a problem that is difficult to resolve. Unfortunately, we sometimes expect things that are next to impossible to happen. If one was to look at higher education and compare the tiered institutions in the whole of the United States, there are no expectations that all ” white’ universities would be involved with competitive research and intellectual property development HBCU’s differ in as much as some are capable of developing research parks but most have missions that are still relevant. The statistics on the graduation rates and the specific development of African-Americans for graduate and professional development demonstrate quite well on their mission.
From my experiences with HBCU’s through NIH and NSF funded research and training, the institutions vary widely in their ability to compete for research funding. Since their primary purpose is education, moving onto competitive research is difficult. Nevertheless, they have students that are capable of being involved in research and in several institutions, these students are involved but correctly as the author states they have to move towards being more innovative. The private institutions that are a part of the United Negro College fund are remarkable in their accomplishments because they are so dependent on Private funds and do not have the annual state appropriations that many of the state supported HBCU’s receive with some concern about the level of funding they receive from the states in relationship to the state flagship institutions.
This is not an excuse but an attempt to provide an understanding of their difficulties and the necessity to encourage those that can be productive to move fast.
.
Dear Earl,
I believe your comments express the ‘angst’ that most of us feel in discussing this topic. I am a proud graduate of both Morehouse College and Morehouse School of Medicine but also have spent a great deal of time at majority institutions including Harvard (where I completed my PhD in Biomedical Research and post-graduate training), NIH and CDC. So I’ve seen both world up close and personal and would agree with your assertion that as they are currently configured HBCUs will have a hard time competing for R&D federal research funding. However, we should not shrink away from the challenge as it is our (the BICI) belief that unless and until a meaningful proportion or cadre of HBCUs take R&D seriously, we as African-Americans will loose something that is essential for the ability of our community to compete and thrive in the Age of Innovation and Competitiveness.
Let’s recognize that while R&D was not their original purpose when they were founded, HBCUs have a sacred responsibility to provide space in which our best and brightest can thrive academically. How are we going to do that if our HBCUs are not practitioners of the art so to speak when it comes to biomedical, engineering and translational R&D? Further, our institutions need to adopt a 21st century approach to their own survival. Why would high performing, competitive and intellectually hungry African-American students be interested in attending an HBCU when they would get offers from majority institutions who have significant opportunities for those students to learn in an R&D intensive atmosphere? HBCUs can no longer rest on their laurels. They must move forward… or perish.
Chad
—
Chad Womack, PhD
Principal & Co-Founder
BICI
You’ve got to be kidding meit’s so tranprsaetnly clear now!
Very well done. I too am not the product of an HBCU, attended Oklahoma State University and am a member of the WVU Visiting Committee under the School of Journalism. Everything written here resonates with me. In addition to our common pathways Mr. Holifield, I’m the project manager for 30 designated African-American public radio stations, the majority of which are licensed to history black colleges. Also, I run a entrepreneurship program funded by The Ford Foundation, where we find journalists of color who want to turn an idea into a viable/sustainable media related business.
I was nodding a lot when reading your article. Universities are great engines of economic growth through research but also job creation. Innovation should be the hallmark of every academic institution and those who wish to experiment, create, fail and try again should have the support of a local institution of higher learning,
There is so much to do. I focus on a means of communication commonly called “radio.” I focus on finding leaders of color who are prudent risk-takers. We’re the beginning of the glide path and once our turn at the wheel is done, we need to pass it to a collective of people who run the second stage, if I’m not stretching the metaphor to broadly. Opportunity remains in place with HBCU’s. I wonder how many can see it?
Mr. Mitchell:
Thank you for noting the paths we share. Truth be told, I was nodding a lot when I read your reply.
Let’s stay at it and we’ll get there.
Onward and upward.
Trim Tabber