For the past 24 years Dr. Ron Walters has been a fixture at Howard University. The tenured chairman of the university's political science department is widely respected in the academic community and is one of an elite group of national scholars who are considered "public intellectuals."

So when he announced a few weeks ago that he was leaving the university for a tenured position at the University of Maryland at College Park, the questions some people asked were: What's going on at the University of Maryland?

Joining Walters at College park this fall is Dr. Walter Broadnax who, until recently, was the deputy assistant secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. Broadnax previously taught at Harvard. The two newcomers will join Drs. Linda Williams, Ernest Wilson III, and Sharon Harley to create a formidable public policy team of scholars working on the subject of race and public policy at the campus in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

"All in all, I have had a good career at Howard," Walters says. "I have a lot invested in this place and what it represents. But the fact is, Maryland provides me with a tremendous opportunity. And they made a very attractive offer."

Walters's departure from Howard is viewed by some as part of a trend in which large, well-financed, traditionally white institutions have begun to compete aggressively for Black scholars. And there are those who claim that when it comes to compensation and the research support that is needed to compete for and retain senior Black scholars universities historically Black colleges and (HBCUs) -- and particularly Howard -- frequently come up short.

"I love HBCUs," says Dr. Mary Frances Berry, a former civil rights activist and member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission who is now on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. "I went to one, I've taught at Howard, and I'd love to be teaching there now. But when it comes to providing [faculty] what it takes to pursue serious intellectual scholarship, HBCUs aren't ready for prime time."