HBCU Homecoming: The Curse That Keeps on Blessing

Posted on by Editorial Board

Google ‘HBCU homecoming’ and here’s what you get.

There’s no homecoming like an HBCU homecoming

As we inched down Georgia Avenue, the aroma of fresh fried fish filled the air. And as we crept closer to the entrance of the school, I saw swarms of people decked out in Howard paraphernalia.

The Source Magazine Presents The Source HBCU [W]RAP UP 2017

There is nothing like an HBCU Homecoming. That could be the entirety of this re-cap but would that really be fair? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Especially since this year, The Source was front and center of all the hot action during two historic homecomings at Howard University and Morehouse College- as they celebrated 150 years of Black …

Watch: VSB and The Root Present the Battle of the HBCUs for VSB HBCU Week!

What’s the fun of celebrating HBCUs if we don’t have a little head-to-head action regarding who has the best homecoming, football team and more? No fun is what. Luckily, we’re fun as shit around here, so where more than two are gathered in the name of HBCUs, let there be shenanigans.

What you don’t see much of is this.

TSU Homecoming 2017 a ‘Tremendous Success’; Scholarship Gala Exceeds $1 Million Goal

NASHVILLE, Tenn. ( TSU News Service) – Tennessee State University will be able to help more students get a quality education after it exceeded its goal of raising $1 million at this year’s Scholarship Gala. “We are pleased to announce that our goal of $1 million was met and exceeded in a big way,” said TSU President Glenda Glover following the Oct.

NC A&T’s homecoming weekend expected to bring economic boost to businesses

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The festivities are already underway as North Carolina A&T State University celebrates its homecoming this week. A lot of people are expected to be in the area for it as many area businesses look forward to the big weekend. “It’s huge! It also gives us as barber’s time to see what’s out there.

http://hbcudigest.com/albany-state-homecoming-expected-to-bring-major-economic-impact-to-region/

http://www.fayobserver.com/news/20171021/fayetteville-state-homecoming-draws-record-crowds

It’s wonderful to celebrate homecoming for exactly what is – the exaggerated, enhanced version of everything good about the emotional experience of historically black colleges. But too often, homecoming is the cornerstone of America’s perception of HBCUs, and while it is an extension of the experience, we can’t afford for HBCU homecoming to be our institutional definition as our campuses are losing audience with our own base and a changing identity of higher education.

No matter how many parties are thrown or how ratchet the city gets, no one mistakes CBC Week as the best and most identifiable element of the Congressional Black Caucus. No one mistakes NBA All-Star weekend as the best part of the league or its product. No one confuses the University of Alabama’s tailgating culture as the linchpin of its athletic program, or the inaugural ball as the what makes the American presidency important to the fate of the free world.

But if you let Google tell it, HBCU students, graduates and leaders are way too willing to let our homecomings represent the best of what we have to offer. We have not distinguished HBCU homecoming as a moment; an aspect of who we are and what we do. And because of that, we are represented in media and cultural narrative by our parties and marching bands, not the scholars and industrial influencers who throw these parties once a year, but who change the world 51 other weekends throughout the year.

So many of us are willing to share our overwhelming feelings about homecoming, but are nowhere to be found when it comes to sharing why HBCUs matter in the same space, with the same amount of passion and insight. And maybe that’s because we don’t realize the economic impact of HBCUs on dozens of black communities and black professionals worldwide. Maybe because institutional value is not something we can buy and wear, smell and taste, hear and dance to; so it doesn’t occur to us that repping our schools requires more than showing face on the yard or making sure Snapchat has filters for our special weekends.

Maybe our own schools don’t communicate their academic, social, political and financial value to us, so we don’t feel compelled to find the information and share it with as many people as we can. Whatever the reason, we should be keenly aware that enemies of HBCUs are celebrating homecoming just as hard as we are, because while we are focused on the event, they are focused on the ease with which we can be distracted while policy marginalizes our very existence.

More Than 30 Top PWIs Just Joined Forces to Recruit Students Away from HBCUs

Hampton University President William Harvey presented at Yale University earlier this month about the continuing value of historically black colleges and universities in educating the nation’s growing minority population.

While we are repping, they are creating scholarships to direct high school graduates to community colleges and predominantly white campuses. While we are strolling through vendor village, they are auditing our campuses at uneven rates to find reason for executive disruption and to reduce funding.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2017/05/02/ag-closes-asu-investigation/101214990/

While we are celebrating the family atmosphere, they are thinking about how they can duplicate or eliminate our academic programs which give us any shot at attracting corporate partnerships or federal funding, or building transformational wealth among our graduates.

Closing the Gap at North Carolina’s Historically Black Universities – The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Earlier this month, the Triangle Business Journal revealed that graduates from North Carolina’s Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) are lagging their peers in terms of median salary after graduation. As the state bolsters its efforts to attract more students to its public HBCUs, it’s especially important to discover the cause of such disparities and …

But most of all, they are hoping that we’ll consider these words to be a killjoy, or an unnecessary thinkpiece to counter Black Homecoming Excellence. Because they know we’ll be right back next year for one more weekend, one more year of not paying attention to the bigger picture.

If we keep this up, soon many of us will not have homes to come back to. And we’ll blame it on everything and everyone else who wasn’t around while we were partying.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/historically-black-colleges-try-to-catch-up-as-rich-schools-get-richer

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