8/7/2019 NAFEO Responds to Proposed SUNO-UNO Merger

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 If You Can Dream It, You Can Achieve It, At An HBCU or PBI!

 

NAFEO Responds to Proposed SUNO-UNO Merger

 

Challenging times require difficult funding choices. To assist Governor Jindal and the Louisiana

Legislature in exploring a range of options for meeting the educational needs of their

increasingly diverse citizenry, while reducing costs, in 2009, Governor Jindal convened the

Louisiana Higher Education Review Commission. The Commission was a blue ribbon panel of 

some of the nation's leading higher education experts, as well as leaders from the legislative,

education, business and industry communities of the State of Louisiana. Persons such as Belle

Wheelan, President of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools;  Mark Musick, former

president of the Southern Regional Education Board; David Longanecker, President of the

Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education and other representatives from the

elementary and secondary education communities, 2- and 4- year colleges and universities

served on the Commission. I was privileged to serve on the Commission representing the

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-serving Institutions. Over

the course of approximately one year, the Commission heard from virtually every segment of the

community.

 

The Commission explored the possibility of merging SUNO and UNO and expressly rejected the

option for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: (1) the important role that SUNO is

playing in meeting the education needs of mostly adult, first generation students of fewer

financial means in attaining a four-year degree in unique programs that respond directly to the

needs of the State's urban and traditionally underserved communities: urban education, criminal

justice, entrepreneurship, social work programs that prepare students not only in the core social

work curricula, but also prepare social workers as advocates and for the empowerment and

transformation of under-resourced and underserved residents and communities; (2) the vastly

different student bodies being served by the SUNO and UNO having  little to do with race but

much to do with that tremendous differences in the enrollment sizes, with UNO being a large

campus (12,000) in which students who are used to, and in need of smaller, nurturing education

environments, would likely not receive the types of supports and attention that will enable them

to thrive; and differences in admissions criteria that would likely leave a large segment of the

New Orleans community that is desirous of attaining a 4-year degree without a viable

option;  and (3) it was recognized by the Commission and the witnesses who appeared before the

Commission that SUNO also plays an important role as part of the nation's only HBCU system:

Southern University System (SUS). SUS is comprised of four unique, complimentary,

geographically dispersed campuses: a four-year undergraduate campus in Baton Rouge; a

graduate campus in Baton Rouge that is home to the State's only 1890s land-grant institution and

one of the nation's five HBCU law schools, that has one of the most diverse student bodies of allof the State's higher education institutions;  and a 2-year campus, Southern University

Shreveport, that has among the highest completion rates of the State's two-year institutions. The

system also operates the Timbuktu Academy, an elementary and secondary academy that is

preparing students for the rigors of college life.

 

With President Ronald Mason having recently assumed the helm of the SUS, the System is

poised to become a national model of how to successfully prepare, inspire, and connect diverse

8/7/2019 NAFEO Responds to Proposed SUNO-UNO Merger

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students to college and opportunity by creating nurturing, rigorous environments beginning at

PK and moving students successfully through high school (Timbuktu Academy), perhaps into

and through a 2-year institution (Shreveport), through a four-year, traditional university (Baton

Rouge), through graduate or professional school, and for adults and non-traditional students,

through Southern University New Orleans. Now is not the time to destroy, but rather

to strengthen the Southern University System.  The critical components are there for the type of model envisioned by this Administration and many governors across the nation, who are

grappling with how to create a seamless, successful PK-20 education pathway to prepare more

students to thrive at home and globally. Governor Jindal should heed the wise counsel of his

Higher Education Review Commission and support the strengthening of SUNO and the Southern

University System. Corporations and foundations that are looking for a model of the new

education pipeline in which to invest should look no further than SUS and invest in the model

that President Mason and the team of remarkable administrators, faculty, and staff at SUS are

trying to perfect.

 

Lezli Baskerville, Esquire

President & CEONational Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education