WASHINGTON — Dr. Lorenzo Esters has spoken resolutely about the “bold, futuristic and intentional” five-point plan launched last month for 18 historically Black land-grant colleges and universities, but he could have easily been summing up his first year as the person tapped by the nation’s oldest higher education association to advance access and diversity among its member institutions.
As the debate over the relevancy of Black colleges continues to swirl inside and outside of academia and troublesome HBCU graduation and retention rates linger, Esters, vice president of the Office for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), has this message at the ready for critics: “Success is a longer road for historically Black colleges and universities.”
Esters, 34, celebrates Black colleges for their ability to take and graduate many students who were like him—from low-performing school districts, from low-income households, and the first in their families to go to college. What distinguishes HBCUs, Esters says, is “their legacy of intentionality. They know who they serve and they have a history of doing that well,” says Esters, a product of three HBCUs: Rust College, Jackson State University and Morgan State University.
But it is the group of Black land-grant colleges and universities, known as the “1890s” for the year they were designated by Congress under the second Morrill Act, that Esters says he wants to equip for a new marketplace while helping them meet “the challenges of institutional advancement and academic enhancement.”
Since his appointment in June 2009, the architecture for such a plan has been on a fast track, says Esters. “It’s their plan,” adds Esters of the 1890 presidents and chancellors who have agreed to adopt and implement activities to benefit their network of institutions. When the HBCU leaders met June 23-25 in Little Rock, Ark., for the APLU’s Council of 1890 Universities summer conference, the plan topped the agenda.
