The best news about this conversion is that it will allow us some tremendous flexibility with advertising, and therefore will allow us to suspend our paid subscriber program. I truly and sincerely appreciate all of you who have paid to subscribe to site over the last few months, and you truly have helped us to do some amazing things in the way of paying for consultation on how to revitalize our reading and information access experience, and figuring out ways to ensure that companies pay for the content instead of readers.

I firmly believe that information should be free to people care to find it, and that we can build a media business without taxing our stakeholders. I am still eager to hire journalists, web developers, editors, social media managers and marketers from HBCUs, so if you are so inclined to continue supporting, please email me to receive my everlasting gratitude an an individual email where I can set you up with a new subscription.

For the time being, I will continue to use Medium as an option to deliver news letters, and perhaps will use it for exclusive commentary to our members. But when you see the new changes and the new platform, feel free to sign up for email updates and free subscription there.

But as of today, you’ll no longer have a monthly fee being deducted from your account. If you are still seeing a deduction from Medium.com, please let me know.

Thanks for all of your support, well-wishes, critique and feedback. And let us know what you think about the new set up in the next few hours!

Yours in Advocacy,

Jarrett Carter Sr.

Down Time Today For the HBCU Digest, Subscription Program was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

False report on social media stirs local concern

Officials at Alabama A&M University have shot down rumors of an on-campus sexually-transmitted disease outbreak this afternoon, following a viral message create by an anonymous Twitter account.

AAMU responds to bogus reports of STD outbreak on campus

WAFF reports on the development, which received several hundred retweets and shares from more than 100 followers following a tweet from @connect_aamu yesterday afternoon. According to university officials, an altered screenshot of the university’s website was the culprit of the false information and resulting reaction.

AAMU Connect on Twitter

It is getting real out here. Wrap it up. #AAMU_RYS17

In a statement to WAFF, officials condemned the message and its impact.

This is an absolutely bogus message, improperly utilizing a format of the University’s webpage. No such statement has been issued by the University. Jerome Saintjones, Director, Office of Marketing & Public Relations.

Alabama A&M Denounces Campus STD Outbreak Fake News was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Access for students from low-income families is essential to closing gaps in education, earnings.

A new study from the Brookings Institute reveals that historically black colleges and universities, on average, nearly double the capacity of predominantly white institutions in helping minority and low-income students achieve higher socio-economic status.

The contribution of historically black colleges and universities to upward mobility | Brookings Institution

Using data from the Equality of Opportunity Project, a formula measuring the admission and graduation rates of low-income students factored with accompanying income records, shows that HBCUs are among the nation’s most effective institutions at helping large percentages of students go from low-earning families to middle and high-earning households after graduation.

The report has spurred analysis in the New York Times, suggesting that enrollment at more than 30 of the nation’s elite institutions is predominantly made up of students from households earning $600,000 annually, while access to students from homes earning $65,000 or less is declining.

Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours.

Part of the disparity in social mobility can be attributed to the number of total students from low-income households admitted to HBCUs which far-outpaces trends at highly-selective institutions. While Ivy League and elite public schools do a better job of social mobility for low-income students, their rigorous admission standards yield far fewer students who go on to earn more annually than their parents or guardians.

Washington Monthly, which annually factors social mobility and service among its ranking formula for colleges and universities, last year ranked Florida A&M University among the nation’s top 100 institutions in helping students to break barriers associated with low household earnings.

2016 College Guide and Rankings

HBCUs Nearly Double Social Mobility Potential of PWIs was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of less than 50 men nationwide leading schools of nursing.

Florida A&M University this week announced Henry C. Talley V as the new dean of its school of nursing, becoming the first man to lead the school in university’s 130-year history.

FAMU Provost Names Lt. Col (Ret.) Henry Talley V New Dean of Nursing

Talley, a retired United States Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel and former founding director of Michigan State University’s Nurse Anesthesia Program, comes to Tallahassee with professional stops at the VA Medical Center in Memphis and teaching posts at Arkansas State University and New York’s Harlem Hospital Center.

FAMU officials lauded that experience as an asset in the school’s effort to expand healthcare teaching and practice to the surrounding region.

“Dr. Talley brings to FAMU a wealth of experience and knowledge in innovative health care practices that will help to bring the FAMU School of Nursing many more years of success under his leadership,” (FAMU Interim Provost Rodner) Wright said. “His commitment to research, nursing policy, and community empowerment for the underprivileged and marginalized also align perfectly with FAMU’s mission to enhance the lives of constituents through innovative research, engaging cooperative extension, and public service.”

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Talley joins a short list of men heading American nursing schools, just 46 out of more than 740 programs nationwide.

Henry Talley Named FAMU’s First Male Nursing Dean was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Allege lack of transparency, threaten legal action

Groups of campus constituents at Morehouse College are opposing a recent vote by the school’s board of trustees for the non-renewal of school president John Silvanus Wilson’s contract.

Some Morehouse students, faculty fighting decision to terminate president

Student leaders at the school say they were barred from the meetings and disallowed the opportunity to assess the performance of Wilson, who has served as president of his alma mater since 2013. From 11 Alive:

“We’re all overwhelmed,” said student trustee and SGA President Johnathan Hill. “We were elected to have a voice — that’s what we wanted. We wanted to be able to assess the president and his performance.”

Members of the school’s faculty senate issued a statement shortly after the non-renewal vote.

“We, the faculty of Morehouse College, strongly object to the decision by the Board of Trustees not to renew the contract of President John S. Wilson without explanation and without the inclusion of faculty and student trustees in the discussion and decision. The faculty also expresses concern regarding the timing of the board’s decision. We demand an explanation and will investigate these decisions.”

Wilson’s contract will expire on June 30.

Morehouse Students, Faculty Speak Out Against Presidential Ouster was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Weeks of criticism and massive fundraising punctuated with historic appearance

Following weeks of national scrutiny and commentary over its decision to appear in the inaugural parade for President Donald Trump, the Talladega College Marching Tornadoes Marching Band made its appearance in Washington D.C. yesterday afternoon.

Members of the band said they were unwilling to miss history on account of the controversial president, and some said the trip represented far more than a political occasion in their lives.

Members of the HBCU Band Performing at Inauguration Are Undeterred by Criticism

“Look at what we came from,” said Bernard Norris, a freshman band member via telephone from the bus en route to Washington, D.C. “Some of us grew up in bad situations — me being one of them. This is not just so we can be on TV, this is so we can … say that we’ve been somewhere that’s very important on this huge stage.”

More than 11,000 people donated nearly $670,000 to the band to defray travel costs for the performance, a total school officials called the largest fundraising effort in the college’s history.

Talladega College band tops in GoFundMe inaugural campaigns

Watch Talladega Marching Band’s Inaugural Parade Performance was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Was responsible for training a slew of undergraduates and graduate students in molecular biology and cancer research who went on to earn PhD’s.

By: Jelani Zarif, Ph.D., MS

In the recent months, the HBCU Digest has covered HBCU Voices of STEM Excellence, highlighting a cadre of HBCU alumni who’ve earned doctorates in STEM. One of the primary figures in building that cadre is Stephen I. N. Ekunwe, a professor of Biology at Jackson State University who died last month, leaving behind a living legacy of countless Jackson State students who have forged paths to the Ph.D. and professoriate.

A two-time graduate of Jackson State, Dr. Ekunwe earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Michigan State University under the mentorship of Dr. Loren R. Snyder. He returned to his alma mater to teach undergraduates and train/mentor student researchers, and became popular among students within the department due through his lecture style and humor.

“To this day, I use the strategy he told us helped him remember the Shine/Dalgarno sequence — African Good Girl African Good Girl,” said Derrick White a PhD Candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Microbiology & Molecular Biology.

Well-respected among his peers as he served as associate chair of Biology for several years before earning the rank of full professor.

“Dr. Ekunwe was true asset to the department of Biology evidenced by so many of his former students matriculating to terminal degrees. JSU has truly lost one of their greatest gems!” said Dr. Ronald Bozeman, who completed his Masters’ thesis with Dr. Ekunwe and went on to earn his Ph.D. in Molecular Carcinogenesis from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Ekunwe served as professor for the genetics (lecture and lab) courses and taught graduate level genetics courses along with running a funded research laboratory with study focus on extracts from the medicinal basil, ocimum gratissimum, and its effects on cancer cell proliferation and movement. His laboratory worked extensively in this area as well as in the area of natural products attempting to isolate the active agent from this medicinal extract.

“Dr. Ekunwe aided me in making the department better for our students and in turn, he made the University better” said Dr. Timothy Turner, chair of the Department of Biology at Jackson State University.

I first began conducting prostate cancer research as an undergraduate researcher and masters student. Prostate cancer is still the focus of my research as postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins. Members from our laboratory typically worked long hours and on weekends. On many occasions, the campus security guards had to let us inside of the John A. Peoples, Jr. Building.

“Dr. Ekunwe always brought out the very best in his student trainees! Being a member of his laboratory prepared me for the rigors of Ph.D. benchwork and ultimately helped me obtain my doctorate degree” stated Dr. Tamica Collins, a recent graduate of Indiana University School of Medicine who conducted her Masters’ thesis with Dr. Ekunwe. “I always admired how close-knit members of his laboratory were.”

“He deeply cared about his mentees and seeing each of them succeed in science,” says Dr. Talia Sanders who earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Science from JSU. “Dedicated, intelligent, and outspoken are only a few of the loving characteristics Dr. Ekunwe possessed. Doc’s honesty is what I admired the most. I loved working with him and found his daily million and one to-do list interesting. With him, I was able to excel in gaining valuable knowledge and skills leading to a master’s and doctoral degree. I’m not afraid of the challenges that may come because I’ll always have him in the back of my mind, helping me along the way.”

Along with his humor, Dr. Ekunwe was regarding for his direction on problem solving and scientific approaches.

“Dr. Ekunwe was a truly wonderful man, and I’m forever grateful for having crossed paths with him” said Dr. Sakeli Hall who earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Science in 2015 from JSU. “I learned life lessons from being a member of the Ekunwe laboratory” said Melvanique Hale BSN, MS a Pediatric Oncology Nurse at St. Jude’s Hospital.

“He taught me so many things about approaching problems in the lab the correct way that once I started my Ph.D. program, I was head and shoulders above peers that came from your proverbial top-tier schools” said Dr. Bozeman.

“Of the many things I remember about Dr. Ekunwe and what stands out the most was his patience with new trainees,” stated Dr. Sara Conard who earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and currently is a postdoctoral Fellow at UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. “I am truly grateful for the opportunities I have received because Dr. Ekunwe took the time to patiently train a freshman undergraduate student. My initial research training in his laboratory definitely played a vital role in my current career.”

Jackson State Mourns Esteemed Biology Professor Stephen I. N. Ekunwe was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

And why aren’t male presidents getting the same treatment?

By: Crystal A. deGregory, PhD and Jarrett Carter Sr.

Losing a campus leader is always difficult, but the passing of North Carolina Central University Chancellor Debra Saunders-White is a particularly painful pill to swallow.

Saunders-White took the helm of NCCU on June 1, 2013, becoming the university’s first permanent female chancellor. Widely beloved for the friendliness that became the hallmark of her personality, her tenure shaped a period of multifaceted growth at NCCU.

Her story eerily resembles that of Portia E. Lovett Bird, who assumed the leadership of the Delaware Conference Academy (now University of Maryland Eastern Shore) following the death of her husband, the school founder, in April 1897. Doing so made Bird, an alumna of Storer Normal School (later Storer College), the first ever black woman leader of an HBCU before her death in office just two short years later at age 40.

At the time, Saunders-White’s appointment was one within a seeming golden age of increasingly progressive board leadership. In a brief period, the HBCU higher education sector soon outpaced the national average for the hiring of female presidents of any race at colleges and universities.

Carolyn W. Meyers was named president of Jackson State University in 2010; Cheryl Davenport Dozier at Savannah State University in 2011 and Cynthia Jackson-Hammond at Central State University in 2012. A. Cherrie Epps, Glenda Baskin Glover and Valerie Montgomery Rice, like Saunders-White, assumed the presidencies of Meharry Medical College, Tennessee State University, and Morehouse School of Medicine, respectively in 2013.

The following year, Roslyn Clark Artis, Gwendolyn A. Boyd, Stacey Franklin Jones and Elmira Mangum, assumed the presidencies of Florida Memorial University, Alabama State University, Elizabeth City State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, respectively.

In 2015, Andrea Lewis Miller assumed the presidency of her alma mater LeMoyne-Owen College, Tashni-Ann Dubroy returned to Shaw University to lead her alma mater, and Evelyn Maria ­Thompson assumed the presidency of Coppin State University.

So much has changed in such little time. Up until this year, all but one of the first-ever black women HBCU presidents appointed during this decade still held office with the exception of Epps, who was 83 at the time of her appointment.

But no more. In just a handful of months, Mangum is out at FAMU, Meyers is out at JSU, the writing is on the wall for Boyd’s departure from her alma mater ASU, and NCCU loses Saunders-White to cancer.

Added to this number of disappearing female HBCU presidents is the June retirement of former Wilberforce University President Algeania Warren Freeman, and the September firing of Allen University’s President Lady June Cole, who succeeded the school’s first full-time female president.

As leader of an HBCU, the fate and future of hundreds, sometimes thousands, is in your hands. High expectations and high stakes are not gender exclusive. In all of these departures, HBCU stakeholders are divided into two clear groups; one for support and the other for scrutiny. As some hurried to their defense, others asked questions — many of them relevant — about their performance. Simply put: did they do their jobs well?

Did they raise money, protect and improve campus infrastructure, listen and respond to the concerns of their many, many constituents, and did they inspire confidence in the people they led?

These questions and others like them are valid and welcomed, because the last thing HBCU culture needs are inept presidents of any gender. But when will we talk about the elephant in the presidential boardroom? When will we also acknowledge the toxic masculinity spurred by patriarchy and sexism as real threats to the general success of HBCU culture, and in particular, to HBCU women presidents (including the most capable and competent)?

With Bennett College and Spelman College safely and respectfully outside of the conversation because of their unique HBCU missions, it is not enough to acknowledge that presidential offices of ivory and ebony towers alike have traditionally been thought of as the purview of men. It is certainly not nearly enough to disguise patriarchy and sexism as traditional (and therefore “appropriate”) gender roles, when limiting the ability of women to access the presidential offices of HBCUs, much less be successful in them.

We must seriously, regularly, and repeatedly examine the culture of HBCU leadership and its gender-based politics — specifically, respectability politics. Only then will we fairly determine how well female presidents actually do their job, instead of allowing sexism to determine performance, or if they even should have a job at all.

Novice presidents should be expected to make presidential gaffes, males and females alike. And we can fully grant that today’s financial and political pictures for black colleges makes the margin of error that much slimmer. But we must ask ourselves if these mistakes are made more costly for a black woman because she also doesn’t smile a lot, or doesn’t seem friendly enough in conversations with trustees and faculty.

Mangum undoubtedly made her share of mistakes, but when are we going to hold the FAMU Board of Trustees to a standard higher than playground fights? Likewise, Meyers’ unceremonious departure in the middle of the school year resembled that of a coach cutting a red-shirted freshman, not an accomplished administrator with two HBCU presidencies which positively changed the course of both schools.

Dillard University students were pepper sprayed on campus while a white supremacist political candidate found safe space in a lecture hall, but no one seriously called for the firing of President Walter Kimbrough. No one took him to task for setting into motion a series of events that could have had disastrous consequences for his campus community, and no one dragged him for invoking an “outsider agitators” narrative more reminiscent of 1960’s segregationists than that of his fraternity brother, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. No one, not even us.

Dillard Should’ve Been The Last Place For Black Students to Get Pepper Sprayed

More importantly, no one wrote a vicious, public letter decrying his hiring, as was the case with Gwendolyn Boyd.

• Watkins apologizes for picking Boyd as ASU president
• No 'Cohabitation' For Alabama State's First Female President

Texas Southern University was plagued by gun violence last fall, with four shootings on or around campus occurring in one semester, with one student being killed. Former TSU President John Rudley was denounced by pockets of students, faculty and members of the board according to several reports, but was not fired or forced to resign in the middle of the academic year like Mangum at FAMU.

• Texas Southern University Has Seen Four Shootings in Six Weeks
• Former Texas Southern President Drops Epic HBCU Twitter Rant

Morgan State University President David Wilson has misspent foundation funds, worked with the state to malign his university’s growth, opposed a landmark lawsuit involving the state’s four black colleges, and for his work, was actually fired by his board — only to be reinstated and offered two new contracts in the following years. He is among the unanimous number of male presidents working under contracts without stipulations concerning cohabitation in their university-owned or leased homes unlike Boyd at ASU.

• Morgan State President Spent $218K in State, Scholarship Funds on Travel
• Confidential Letter Sheds Light On Why Morgan State President Was Ousted

That is far better treatment than Cole, who was physically escorted off campus, received when Allen trustees terminated her contract.

Sources: Allen University president fired

Because we cape for black male presidents, we offer them the space to reclaim grace from administrative errors and interpersonal mistakes. Morehouse College President John Wilson has been dogged by rumors and calls for his termination for more than two years, yet remains in place with cursory affirmations of support from board and alumni officers without detail of how he has earned it.

• Morehouse alumni start petition to fire college's president
• Morehouse Leaders Affirm Support for President John Wilson

Women in HBCU presidencies have not received the same opportunity to get it wrong and to learn how to get it right. They are told to get out.

This isn’t to say that women don’t earn the right to be fired, or have earned the right to be judged with fewer or softened metrics of success against male counterparts. It is to say that HBCUs are in no position, collectively, to brand women as executive failures worthy of quick removal, while men can stick it out for a more appropriate time and approach.

Debra Saunders-White, even while battling cancer, stuck it out. HBCU culture’s loss is indeed, heaven’s gain.

Where Have All The Black Women HBCU Presidents Gone? was originally published in HBCU Digest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.