Dr. Jameca Cooper explains how HBCUs, created after emancipation to educate African Americans, produce outsized results: their graduates make up 80% of Black judges and 50% of Black doctors and lawyers, despite HBCUs being only 3% of four-year colleges. She credits strong faculty mentorship, tight-knit communities, and family support networks.
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Hi, this is Dr. Jameca Cooper Cooper, and today I want to talk specifically about HBCUs. So what is an HBCU? An HBCU is a historically Black college and university, and HBCUs started from the need to educate African Americans right after emancipation. HBCUs were sometimes, and most times, the only place where African Americans could be educated. So that's where it originated from, and of course their tradition has grown until now. So let's look at some of the research. The research says that although HBCUs are only 3% of all four-year institutions HBCU graduates account for 80% of all Black judges and 50% of all doctors and lawyers. That is a huge amount. So this data tells us that HBCU graduates are more successful in the world of work in this country. How and why is the question that I have for you. When I think about my experience having attended Tougaloo College, an HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi, I think that it really revolves around certain things that were components at the HBCU and at my college. Things like support. I really did feel supported, not just by my family, but my peers, my college professors, as well as the administration. It also matters that you feel a certain level of security. In other words, you feel safe. You feel like you're in an environment that it's safe, it's protected, in other words, insulated in certain ways. In other words, you feel like you're in your own little bubble and in your community. And that can be a big factor in what it takes to achieve and to accomplish things in a college environment. The other thing that I think it has to do with is faculty and mentoring. Going to an HBCU and having faculty that are also African American, not all African American, but definitely some will be African American, Those faculty members have a way of motivating and inspiring you in ways that may be similar to how your parents would motivate and inspire you. It's very, very harsh, sometimes real-world talking, but they have a way of getting to you and providing really good examples of things that matter to you. It also involves a great deal of mentoring that you can get from the faculty members or connections that those faculty members can make for you with other people outside of the institution. But all of those things matter when you look at degree attainment, success, GPAs, graduate school, and of course beyond when we look at the statistics in the world of work. All those things matter and have made HBCU graduates very successful. So I'm interested in hearing from all of the HBCU graduates on what do you think makes you successful or more successful than your peers at predominantly white institutions? Let's talk about it. Drop your information and opinions in the comment section here. I'm interested in hearing from other HBCU graduates regarding what do you think are the elements that have to do with your success as an HBCU graduate? Let's talk about it. Drop your information and your opinion in the comments here and make sure that you subscribe.
