Who Gets to Define HBCU Excellence? RETHINKING PREPARATION, POWER, AND THE FUTURE OF BLACK HIGHER EDUCATION BY CRYSTAL A. deGREGORY, PH.D.
“Illustrious” is a word every person in the Historically Black College and University community knows by heart. We use it to describe our institutions, their histories, and the people they have produced. But the future of HBCU excellence will require more than celebrating what has already been illustrious: our preparation of students for professional opportunity, our role in building the Black middle class, even our contribution to the creation of Black millionaires and billionaires. It will require deciding whether we are preparing Black students merely to thrive in the world as it is—or to remake it into something far better: decidedly anti-racist and unapologetically pro-Black. For generations, HBCU supporters have answered attacks on our relevance by insisting that our institutions prepare Black students for the “real world” as well as—and often better than— historically and predominantly white colleges and universities. The opposing argument has long suggested that Black- majority campuses shelter students from reality because the professional world they will enter is white. HBCU advocates have countered that our students learn to navigate that world
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