Before visiting Morehouse College and Spelman College as a part of a “domestic study abroad” trip last month, I had no knowledge of the unique characteristics and importance of such institutions–my experiences prior to this trip had been solely at a large public PWI in the Midwest. HBCUs were very unfamiliar to me, and I felt this trip could be a valuable learning experience to reflect on different elements of diversity among higher education institutions.
For ten days my classmates and I immersed ourselves at Morehouse College. It was an incredibly educational and inspiring experience that allowed me to recognize how higher education was built and still exists within a system of institutional racism and inequality.
Throughout our course we read the text Understanding Minority Serving Institutions edited by Dr. Marybeth Gasman, Benjamin Baez, and Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner. We read numerous articles on HBCUs, watched videos of the Civil Rights Movement while discussing current issues facing HBCUs. However the true learning experience took place once we arrived at Morehouse to listen to experiences firsthand.
We met with faculty members, administrators, student affairs staff members and students. The student’s shared experiences gave us a glimpse of how these colleges have positively affected their lives and countless other students in ways that PWIs may struggle to match. We attended baccalaureate ceremonies, graduation, and the “March through the Arch” Ceremony at Spelman College. We visited Birmingham to tour the Civil Rights Museum and the 16th street Baptist Church. In Atlanta, we went to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and toured his childhood home.
The most powerful moment for me was hearing the lived experiences of students at Morehouse and Spelman College and how attending an HBCU was critical not only to their education, but their identity development and how it served as an overall foundation for their future.
The combination of these experiences made for a truly powerful educational experience, one that I will take with me as a future professional in higher education and continually work to understand.
From the outside looking in, perceptions can be that HBCUs educate African Americans as a monolithic group. In reality, the diversity of the African American experience at Morehouse is incredible.
Morehouse and Spelman both bring in students from all over the country; they recruit international students, students with various socioeconomic statuses, different religions and ideologies and identities, all of which foster the environment that makes Morehouse such an incredible place for student development.
As one student said, “being immersed in an environment with so much diversity and difference really allows for growth and learning.”
From this experience I have come to greatly appreciate the importance of HBCU’s for American society and higher education. HBCUs graduate approximately 20% of African Americans who earn undergraduate degrees with only 105 institutions in existence. However, HBCUs are disproportionately underfunded, undervalued, stereotyped and perceived as unnecessary by the uniformed.
In a “color-blind, post-racial” society, where affirmative action is incorrectly seen as unnecessary and public education in communities of color are so drastically underserved compared to their White counterparts, HBCUs are needed more than ever. Not only just to counter this rhetoric, but to foster leaders that can truly create change in our society and continue the rich diversity that is needed throughout higher education. I am very grateful for the opportunity Morehouse College faculty, administrators and students gave us, welcoming us to their institution as students wanting to better our knowledge about HBCUs.
Op-ed by Joe Miller, graduate student at Grand Valley State University
