Forging Futures Together by Strengthening Collaborations

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Research 1 (R1) institutions have long held complementary roles in growing the nation’s engineering workforce. But together they haven’t been able to provide HBCU students with equitable opportunities for graduate degrees and the influential roles they lead to in academia and beyond—roles that are instrumental in driving the U.S. scientific enterprise.

This gap has implications for individuals, communities and our nation as a whole. It contributes  to Black students and other students of color remaining frozen out of a key sector, and to the development of science and technology advances that do not serve all populations. At issue as well is the future of American competitiveness—“an accelerating STEM talent crisis that increasingly puts our economic and national security at risk,” the National Science Board warned earlier this year.

Minority Serving Institutions, particularly HBCUs, have always been a crucial locus for alleviating underrepresentation in the STEM workforce, and their role becomes even greater in light of the recent nationwide ban on consideration of race in university admissions.

All of these issues call for strengthening pathways for HBCU students, in particular students of color, into science and technology research careers, and for HBCUs to join the ranks of the R1s. 

In June 2024 the HBCU Engineering Deans Council held the first HBCU Engineering Deans Summit at the University of Michigan College of Engineering, and invited deans from a host of R1 universities to join. The charge was to forge connections and discuss how to partner in authentic and sustainable ways to support expansion of research programs at HBCUs.

We identified 4 key steps—Understand, Align, Partner and Sustain—that include 11 recommendations and numerous tactics to draw on.

1.) Understand: Set a foundation for meaningful collaboration.

• Deepen knowledge of one another.
• Spend time at each other’s institutions.

2.) Align: Recognize common goals and unique strengths. 

• Find shared motivations.
• Leverage strengths from both sides.

3.) Partner: Create innovative partnerships.

• Move in exciting new directions together.
• Collaborate on curriculum, teaching, advising, research.
• Make the case to HBCU students.

4.) Sustain: Build infrastructure to maintain partnerships.

• Advocate for equity in funding.
• Build bandwidth for true partnerships.
• Strengthen support of HBCU students at R1s.
• Enhance lab infrastructure at HBCUs.

We also engaged in critical conversations acknowledging bias and difference in areas including: the historical context that informs our disparate student support cultures, the persistent misperception that HBCU students are less capable, the need for R1s to adapt to better support students, HBCUs’ worry that R1s will recruit away faculty, and how quantifying funding disparities helps clarify their magnitude and impact. Acknowledging these issues is part of the foundational process of understanding one another. 

Federal agency program directors and U-M research leaders discussed several funding opportunities designed to build research capacity at HBCUs. NSF GRANTED, or Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Equity and Diversity, funds the research enterprise rather than research itself. NSF’s HBCU-EiR, or Historically Black Colleges and Universities – Excellence in Research, aims to support HBCU faculty and strengthen connections between them and core NSF program directors. 

Success means establishing robust research infrastructure and engineering Ph.D. programs at HBCUs. It means strong, lasting and flexible partnerships between R1s and HBCUs. But it doesn’t mean all the programs we launch will be needed for posterity. Some programs may put themselves out of business. Ultimately we hope to look back at the 2024 HBCU Engineering Deans Summit as the start of a monumental shift. The Council aims to meet at least once a year among themselves in a similar Summit, as well as with R1 leaders. Plans are underway for 2025.