SECTOR NEWS
North Carolina Central opts out of spring football
NCCU announced last Thursday that it is opting-out of competition during the spring semester due to concerns about the health, safety and well-being of its student-athletes because of COVID-19. Instead it is moving forward with a traditional spring practice to prepare for fall play. (HBCU Gameday)
Knoxville College names interim president
Knoxville College last week announced that Dr. Keith Lindsey, Interim President, has stepped down from his position at the college effective December 31, 2020. The Knoxville College Board of Trustees met on January 4, 2021 and elected Leonard Adams to serve as Interim President effective immediately.
Dr. Lindsey provided leadership for Knoxville College for more than 3 ½ years. He has led numerous strategic initiatives on behalf of Knoxville College including campus renovations, state authorization by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, implementation of the online learning management system for classes, new academic concentrations, and development of an accreditation plan. Knoxville College would like to thank Dr. Lindsey for his service to Knoxville College. (Knoxville College)
Harris’ rise illustrates the evolution of HBCUs
Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is the first graduate of a historically Black college or university to enter the White House — and her background reflects the changing demographics at HBCUs. (Axios)
HBCUs are our past — and our future
The route to work is always the same. Leave the highway and turn right on Sandra Bland Parkway. Follow it to its end, past the location where a state trooper stopped Bland’s car—the confrontation that would lead to her arrest and ultimately her death—and drive onto the campus of Texas’s Prairie View A&M University, one of 101 historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. Once there, I see what Bland must have seen on her first day of college, and what I saw on the first day of mine nearly 30 years ago: a beautiful campus with lush oaks and stately buildings that tell the story of a people whose freedom has been forged in the face of injustice and whose joy is political resistance.
Every time I make this drive, now as a professor, I am reminded that the first thing our ancestors did when they were emancipated was erect institutions of higher learning. These campuses house and nurture their most important legacy—the committed pursuit of knowledge and freedom, first imagined and then made real for our children. HBCUs remind us all that Black ingenuity is more resilient than white supremacy. (Elle)
