Historically Black Institutions Research Articles

Differing priorities: International research collaboration trends of South African universities, 2012-2021

This study analyses international research collaboration (IRC) trends of South African public universities during the 2012-2021 period. While previous studies have explored IRC trends between South Africa and the rest of the world, there is a gap in literature when it comes to the analysis of institutional IRC trends. Using bibliometric data from Scopus, we analyse the internationally coauthored scholarly output of 24 public universities. Our focus is on the annual and overall institutional IRC trends; a comparison of IRC trends between different institutional types; and an analysis of institutional IRC trends broken down by world regions. Our findings show that the inequalities rooted in colonial and apartheid policies continue to be evident in South African higher education, and that most of the scholarly output through IRC is produced by historically white institutions (HWIs). The findings highlight that HWIs prioritise IRC with the Global North while neglecting research collaboration with the African continent and Global South. On the other hand, even though research output at historically black institutions (HBIs) is low, these institutions prioritise intra-Africa and South-South IRC. Our findings highlight the need for the government to move beyond the policy rhetoric and implement programmes that would enable HBIs to develop capacity to produce scholarly output through national and international collaboration. The government also needs to develop incentives for universities which are contributing to the expansion and strengthening of IRC within the African continent and Global South, in line with the national higher education and research priorities.

The Place of English Literature in the South African University: Zoë Wicomb’s “A Clearing in the Bush”

This paper considers the place of English Literature as a university discipline in South Africa given the call to decolonise universities in the wake of Rhodes Must Fall. Focussing on historically black institutions (HBIs) and the apartheid government’s minimising of ‘aesthetic education’ (following Spivak’s use of the term) at them, I turn to Zoë Wicomb’s story “A Clearing in the Bush” (1987), which is set at the University of the Western Cape in the 1960s and concerns the attempts of an English literature student to complete an essay on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles. Wicomb’s story, I argue, invites us to think about the ambivalent role of English at HBIs and illustrates how literary study can act both as a particularly insidious vehicle for disciplinary power and, potentially, as a means for critiquing such power. Finally, the paper considers how Wicomb’s story remains pertinent today.Keywords: English literature, decolonisation, Zoë Wicomb, Thomas Hardy, Bantu Education, discipline, disciplinary power, aesthetic education, desire, pedagogy, University of the Western Cape

The impact of freshmen college leadership experiences on their leader self-efficacy development in historically black institutions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of college leadership experiences on the leader self-efficacy development of freshmen in two historically black institutions (HBIs).Design/methodology/approachData were collected in two phases from 200 freshmen to assess their leader self-efficacies at the beginning and end of a 16-week semester. The authors developed an eight-item questionnaire to measure college leadership experiences and adapted the 22-item leader efficacy questionnaire developed by Hannah and Avolio (2013) to measure self-efficacy.FindingsThe result of the structural equation modeling revealed that college leadership experiences have a significant positive impact on college leader self-efficacy. Moreover, college leadership experiences significantly mediated the effect of high school leadership experiences on college leader self-efficacy. Pre-college leader self-efficacy had a significant positive effect on college leader self-efficacy but an insignificant effect on college leadership experiences. The findings indicated that holding leadership positions and volunteering in the first semester of college were positively and strongly related to college leadership experiences.Originality/valueFirst, this study will empirically examine the causal relationships between college leadership experiences and leader self-efficacy by controlling for the effect of the pre-college leader efficacy. Without controlling for the pre-existing differences among participants, the effects of college leadership experiences on leader self-efficacy development may be overestimated. Second, despite self-efficacy being a critical component in leadership models and being important in boosting leaders’ confidence, only limited research uses well-defined conceptual leadership models in studying student leader self-efficacy. This study fills the gap by using a contemporary conceptual model that encompasses the key leadership variables necessary in assessing the student leadership development.

She persisted: the pursuit, persistence, & power of African American women in social work graduate programs at Historically Black Institutions (HBI)

Social work graduate programs have long grappled with ways to attract and retain students at the intersection of race and gender. The central structure of this analysis is a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study on the pursuit and persistence of African-American women in graduate Social Work programs at a Historically Black Institution (HBI). The data in this article were derived from the responses of 13 participants written in their own words. The themes that emerged around the pursuit of a social work degree were (a) service to Black communities, (b) resistance to misrecognition, and (c) a seat at the table. After sharing the salient characteristics of the findings, the article opens a discussion around the significance of HBIs in educating social workers to work in urban communities and the implications for policy and practice.

The Impact of Desegregation on College Choices of Elite Black Athletes

Even a casual observer of American college athletics can see the emergence of star black athletes in conferences that once were racially segregated. By analyzing the college origins of National Football League and National Basketball Association draft choices between 1947 and 2011, this research measures the impact of higher education desegregation on the choices of elite African-American athletes in moving from historically black institutions (HBIs) to traditionally white institutions (TWIs). Using draft data and narrative descriptions, this paper documents when, why, and how this shift occurred. The desegregation of American education sometimes had the perverse effect of increasing opportunities for individual African-Americans, while subordinating the role or even extinguishing the black institutions serving that population in the Jim Crow era. In the desegregated era, there are some benefits to individual black athletes whose high professional draft status may make them young millionaires and to the states which have replaced a rigid odious racial color consciousness with fans cheering for university team colors worn by both their black and white athletes. But there is a price paid by the athletic programs of HBIs who are now confined to lower level conferences away from the most publicized contests. Some data reflected in the paper suggests that HBIs are losing in the competition to recruit elite black students in non-athletic fields as well.

Private giving and state funding of Maryland's public institutions: New perspectives on support of historically black institutions

College leaders and policymakers benefit by understanding the relationship between increases in private giving, changes in state appropriations and how to position the institution to maximize both sources of revenue. Anecdotal and attitudinal studies suggested that fundraising success may affect state funding of higher education institutions. Recent quantitative research examining all Maryland 4-year public institutions indicated that total private giving was a partial predictor of state funding per full-time equivalent student, although there was no multiplier effect on private giving leveraging increased state operating funding. This research demonstrated a new method to examine the private and state support of Historically Black Institutions (HBIs) and Traditionally White Institutions (TWIs) and the supplanting of state funding, which is the focus of this article. My analysis of data from Maryland's four HBIs compared to TWIs was undertaken to compare fundraising activity and state operating funding support during the period FY1997 – FY2006. This research was inspired from an understanding of public choice theory, the correlation of endowment size and institutional quality rankings, and the cost of excellence study. I developed a quantitative study of Maryland 4-year public institutions over a 10-year period. My research analyzed the change in private giving in terms of the institutional endowment and treatment of state funding as the equivalent of spending from a pseudo endowment. Pseudo endowment is a ratio that simulates an unrestricted endowment necessary to support an equivalent spending level equal to state funding and will be explained in greater detail within the research design section of this article.

Race Consciousness in Higher Education: Does 'Sound Educational Policy' Support the Continued Existence of Historically Black Colleges?

The author proposes that to achieve the constitutional mandate of equal educational opportunity for African-Americans seeking higher education, southern states with formerly de jure systems of higher education must reconceive the missions of their higher education systems to include the preservation of historically Black institutions (HBIs) for two reasons. First, preserving HBIs, coupled with aggressive affirmative action admission and hiring policies at predominantly white state colleges and universities, provides the maximum opportunity for African-Americans to obtain higher education. Second, historically Black educational institutions serve a vital role in preserving the positive aspects of African-American culture, which facilitates the delivery of quality education. [FN15] Reliance on indigenous cultural values helps sustain racial minorities against the adverse consequences of and double-mindedness created by racial domination. Such reliance, in the context of education, also serves to remediate the inequality resulting from race-based dominance by affirming the ability of African-American students to learn, grow, and develop both inside and outside the dominate culture's social, economic, and political systems.

Funding Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Progress Toward Equality?

For decades, state funding of public historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) has been shown to be de facto discriminatory relative to the funding of their predominately white counterparts. Although the dual system has been legally dismantled, the disparate funding has remained in place in a number of ways. For example, recent research shows that in 1995 approximately 17% of the fewer state funding dollars allocated to historically black institutions (HBI) relative to predominately white institutions (PWI) could be attributed to fiscal discrimination. After more than a decade, the present research uses 2006 finance data to provide tests as to the extent of progress in moving HBI toward greater funding equality.

Race, Reform, and Desegregation in Mississippi Higher Education: Historically Black Institutions after United States v. Fordice

In United States v. Fordice (1992), the Supreme Court recognized the effects of past racial discrimination against historically black institutions (HBIs) in Mississippi. One goal of the 500 million settlement is for HBIs to enroll “other-race” students. Although the impetus to attract white students falls on HBIs, the response of Mississippi's white community is pivotal. In a series of focus groups with white students, we inquired into the factors that might motivate them to attend an HBI. The data demonstrate that most white students strongly resist the notion of attending a predominately black institution. They articulate such reasons as perceived poor academic quality, social discomfort, anticipated discrimination, and parental disapproval. Further, they cannot imagine how HBIs might recruit white students and generally doubt that improved programs and facilities would achieve this goal. The current framework surrounding Fordice does not consider sufficiently the importance of these racial attitudes. We thus conclude with a discussion of the likely difficulties in implementing the Court's decision.

Factors Underlying Technikon and University Enrolment Trends in South Africa

This was a descriptive survey involving four South African higher education (HE) institutions. Specifically, the study sought to critically investigate factors that could explain enrolment patterns in universities and technikons. The findings indicated that the choices of the institutions were mainly made by the respondents themselves, based on their career preferences. Affordability and other financial considerations did not come out as a major factor in the ultimate choice of the institution by respondents from historically white institutions (HWIs). However, this was a major point of consideration for respondents from historically black institutions (HBIs). Furthermore, accessibility to financial aid did appear to be a major factor for all respondents. Other determining factors included the public image of the institution of choice; the perceived quality of staff; institutional stability; teaching resources and other facilities available to students; administrative efficiency (including the friendliness of staff); the operational and instructional language of the institution; admissions and course registration processes and procedures; fairness in the allocation of facilities and other resources; and physical appearance/attractiveness of the institutions. However, catering services did not come out as a critical factor in attracting students to the institutions.

South African Higher Education: The Challenge of Change

A is characteristic of periods of political and social transition, South African higher education is in considerable flux. Multiple initiatives are under way as the new democratic government, the new advisory Council on Higher Education, various stakeholder organizations, and the 21 universities and 15 technikons themselves attempt to reconstruct and transform apartheid’s higher education legacy in relation to new policy goals, formulated through a long and extensive process of research, debate, and consultation. The higher education transformation agenda has its source in three related conditions. First, the inherited system was designed, in the main, to reproduce, through teaching and research, white privilege and black subordination in all spheres of society. Higher education was characterized by a lack of vision and a paralysis in policymaking, and problems of legitimacy and other conflicts around governance. Further, it was fragmented and divided along racial and ethnic lines, and reflected severe social inequalities of “race” and gender with respect to student access and success and the composition of academic staff. Finally, major institutional inequities existed between what are termed historically white institutions (HWIs) and historically black institutions (HBIs). Thus, a key policy imperative is to transform higher education so that it becomes more socially equitable internally and promotes social equity more generally. Second, whereas previously research and teaching were shaped by the socioeconomic and political priorities of the apartheid separate development program, higher education is now called on to address and respond to the development needs of a democratic South Africa. These needs are crystallized in the Reconstruction and Development Programme of 1994 as a fourfold commitment: “meeting basic needs of people,” “developing our human resources,” “building the economy,” and “democratizing the state and society.” Finally, South Africa’s transition is occurring during a period that has witnessed the emergence of a global economy and changes in the world captured by the concept “globalization.” It is recognized that, in the words of Martin Carnoy, economic growth, is “increasingly dependent on knowledge and information applied to production, and this knowledge is increasingly science-based.”1 Moreover, there is broad acceptance for Manuel Castells’ argument that “if knowledge is the electricity of the new informational international economy, then institutions of higher education are the power sources on which a new development process must rely.”2 Thus, a related challenge facing higher education is to produce through research and teaching-learning programs the knowledge and human resources that will enable South Africa to engage with and participate in a highly competitive global economy. Higher education policy development, from the National Commission on Higher Education of 1995, to the Higher Education Act of 1997, and the white paper on higher education entitled, “A Programme for Transformation of Higher Education in South Africa,” has taken as its point of departure this triple challenge—overcoming the apartheid legacy, contributing to reconstruction and development, and positioning South Africa to effectively engage globalization. The following policy initiatives have been drawn up from identified higher education priorities: • development of a single, differentiated, and coordinated system; • cooperative governance of the system, institutions, and partnerships; • increased and broadened participation within higher education to meet human resource needs and advance social equity; • curriculum restructuring and knowledge production that are responsive to societal interests and needs; • quality assurance through assessment and promotion of quality and accreditation of programs; • incorporation of higher education programs and qualifications within a national qualifications framework designed to promote articulation, mobility, and transferability; • improved institutional planning and management and the development of three-year institutional plans; and • state funding on the basis of allocated student enrollments and accredited programs with redress funding to overcome historical institutional inequities

Black Public Colleges and Universities

In the 19 states and the District of Columbia that have Black public colleges and universities, Black students have been admitted to previously all-White colleges and universities, and White students have enrolled in historically Black institutions (HBIs) in increasing numbers.' In Table 1, the Fall 1984 totals and racial composition of enrollment at the 38 publicly supported 4-year HBOs in these states are shown. These changes have led to considerable uncertainty about the educational role of Black public colleges and universities, an uncertainty that is exceedingly serious and potentially fatal in an era of demographic decline and heightened interinstitutional competition for students. The purpose of this article is to outline some of the prospects and problems involved in three principal directions an HBI may take or has taken in redefining its mission to serve students effectively and to create a secure niche for itself in its state system of higher education. A public HBI's alternatives include emphasizing one or more of the following functions, which imply corresponding institutional models: