 blue, blue, white, and black. I'm just after dark and privileged to be with you young alumni from historic Black houses universities have an in-depth conversation with about the institutions in the world surrounding them. Today's friend brother Eric went to get him in the school, uh, over on Instagram telling the hands on me. Let's start with the audience. The bait last night. What's, um, I think it's, it's, it's not, I appreciate this one. Got mentioned, we'll get to that in a second. Um, but do you think that that anything can determine any kind of reasonable shift in the election arm? We just, we are where we're going to be more than a third. Everybody shaking their hands. Mr. what do you do? I can't decide, um, that's all you can say right now that I had the bait last night. But why, why, why are you silent? Because I think everybody has a different reason. I mean, it was weird because like on one end it was like the best, the, it's the best debate that we've seen in like from Biden, right? It's the best, like all effort. It's probably the clearest that we've heard of a lot of his platforms, which is kind of this heartland because it was the last debate. And then on the other end, it's just, I think the most disheartening thing is like just knowing that the only point that Trump had that was actually debatably factual was the HPCB point. Like I was like, like that, that was probably the most disheartening part. Like that's why I say like it's a heavy side because it's like, we don't want to admit it, but dang, he did bring that one out there. So that is what we're doing to that. So the interesting part about that is, I think I saw a tweet from Jamila Lemieux who was saying every HPC president should decry him bringing up HPC funding. There are inconsistencies about the amount, you know, the permanency of it. Every politician lies about funding in some respect. Trump is lying, but it's support. It is legitimate support. I'm tired of it being that the cold HPCU is being the cold for black folks. But do you think that that has any resonance, especially because we're in this period where more and more brothers are coming out saying the vote shouldn't be for sale or the vote shouldn't come that easy. Especially when you think about how many rappers have come out, they don't have any particular ties to HPCU's Ice Cube and 50 Cent and Kanye. They don't have spectacular HPCU ties. I mean, does that make a difference? They look at you. Repeat your last question. Does it make a difference given that all the noise about black men being more selective in this presidential election and our vote being up for grabs, do you think that the HPCU mentioned from last night or at any point has any resonance with black men or anybody who might be on the fence? No. I don't think the comment from last night has anyone pushing anything because there is so much noise and there is just so much going on that I don't even know if that comment is resonating with anyone actually right now. It's almost like I feel like the comment is late, but it's not late because the conversation should always be had. But the ways in which we're having them, there's so much distraction around it, especially when we want to bring in the celebrities who are opening their mouths and speaking on behalf of the black community. I missed that meeting. I missed the email. I missed the text message because I just somehow forgot that we were having a meeting to even select our contracts. So I actually don't think that the comment about HPCU's is pushing anything. It feels afterthought to me, which most of this has been. Or as I've never got to say, now you've been destroying black men who've been saying, I don't know who to choose or my voters up for grabs. Do you stick with that point? Because I never got the sense that the whole HPCU point really resonated with people. I feel like all four years, every time Trump said that, black folks, HPCU folks kind of were like, man, please. It never moved the meter. And perhaps maybe because he was such a racist outside of that context. But I don't think anybody other than the president's ever said, that means something. Am I wrong? So you're on mute. Can you hear me now? Yeah. I think part of the issue is that people, the black men who are going to be moved by Trump aren't college graduates for the most part. They're also not HPCU graduates. They went college at all. And it's y'all keep losing me. All right, my bad. I just don't think that I don't think it matters because I don't think the black men who are thinking about Trump are even care about HPCU. Those are people who say college doesn't matter. They want trades. They want those types of things. They're worried about those type of issues. They're worried about money crumbling reform. They're not worried about the things that I think the HPCU community is. I think also, HPCUs are very regional. So if you live in California, if you live even in Illinois, even in the Midwest states that have HPCUs, it's not as ingrained in those cultures, I think, as it is in some of the East Coast and Southern states. So black men, I don't think people with New Jersey overwhelmingly are concerned about HPCU issues as much as they are in Maryland. But I mean, I think that in general, I just feel like it's people looking for an excuse to vote for Trump. Everyone wants to find their excuse. If it's the crime bill, it's whatever it is. It's all based on lies. He lied a lot. He lied a lot last night. I mean, he even said Joe Biden called people super predators. Just the fact that he was willing to just look at what I did up, like whatever talking point I come up with, I'm going to say, be it true or false. Anybody who is looking at that and says, oh, Trump did well or even Biden did well, it's like, we can't even have a substantive conversation about facts. So it's really just hardening for me because it just shows you how stupid Americans really are. We really are comfortable with this level of ignorance. It's ignorant. It really is like, oh, he can say whatever he can say. He thought Biden's brother. I mean, I didn't even hear him talk about mentioning Biden's brother. First of all, he's 70. The hell was his brother? When did this happen? When did the brother get involved? I thought it was about Hunter all the time. And then there's a laptop and emails. It was just bad. It was just bad. Eric, I will ask you this. And it actually ties to a segment that we're going to do a little bit about workforce development out of HBCUs. But Representative Mark Warner out of North Carolina wrote an op-ed in The Hill this week that said, you know, we ought to do a better job of tapping HBCUs to produce more legislative and elected officials and staffers. Because you can't address these issues and you can't address these inequities until you get an infrastructure that's influenced by us. So to the point that you've seen, you know, you got a white man from North Carolina saying we got to get more diverse and congressional ranks. You have more and more people of color running for and winning elected office at local and federal levels. Do you think that Trump accelerates and there's some proof or some evidence that suggests he has already from the 2018 midterm? But do you think either his exit or his retention will accelerate the number of Black folks getting involved in politics? And does that bode well for HBCUs in terms of HBCU graduates getting involved? And if so, how much of a platform should Black colleges be in terms of their political campaigns or their campaign to reach people? The unfortunate thing is that over the last four years, what I truthfully seeing is not necessarily just more Black people being involved with politics, but I've seen more Black people being involved in scam politics, I mean, if you will. I think I've seen more of a boom or a resurgence, if you will, of outwardly politically Black conservatives over the last four years, then I have seen anything necessarily changing on a liberal progressive end. And to that point, I mean, so it may be an increase, but we have to see where the increase is at, right? If you have more Black people being involved with politics, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, we do need people on both sides of the aisles. I don't necessarily like the fact that it's primarily two parties, but we do need more people involved in general. What I will say is that that op-ed is a great standpoint, but as somebody who's worked to showing more HVCU students the actual political process up front, bringing students to Capitol Hill with HVCU Collective, what we've done over the last handful of years, it's very hard for the entire way of just getting people involved with politics to even become staffers. The amount of money that it takes for somebody to become a staffer, which is largely an unpaid position while living in Washington, DC, which is one of the top five most expensive metropolitan areas in the country to live within, he doesn't really, we can want to have more of us in those situations that we want to, and we should, but we've got to be more realistic about what that looks like. If you're not going after these people on a political level while they're selling colleges in regional areas, then getting them up to the Hill doesn't necessarily make the most sense. And then beyond that, if you really care, like, do you really want them there to make it look like you're doing more as far as making it more diverse, or do you want them there to actually have influence? Because you could have a bunch of black staffers all you want to, but just like Trump used the president as a photo op, those staffers can be used as a photo op too. It doesn't mean they're actually doing anything to really change where we're going. Let's talk about that real quick, like how you change over strategy. So, Oona, I think is our official protest correspondent for Dodgers at the Dark. Once election season arrives, and as many demonstrations and things that you've been a part of, do you see a lot of the people that came out for like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, do you see that transitioning over to activity to influence policy? And let's just take it from New York, from a New York perspective. Do you see all people, not just black folks, saying, okay, we were doing this for unjust murders and homicide by police and all that. Now let's have a conversation about policy, or do we have to be activated by something that's just blatantly unjust and that's what'll take it to the streets? I mean, I think that we are activated, and then we start remembering all the other stuff that we didn't speak on or that we didn't get justice. So, when we go out there, it's definitely about what currently happened, but it's also about those things that, hey, we still don't know what's going on with the Breonna Taylor. Like, there's still stuff out there that we're trying to understand and find out. We know it's been hitting from us. So, I don't think it's necessarily policy that will change, but the fact that we are seeing in our neighborhoods, in our communities, that we're not getting just treatment. Policy, I mean, we were protesting when Obama was president. It didn't matter. Katie, have you seen more activity in your community, not necessarily about HBCUs, but have you seen more people who typically aren't politically engaged or just not dialed in on a regular basis? Have you seen more activity from them leading up to this election? Yeah. Ollie is more to rebut Joe Biden than it is to the anti-45. And my thing is that's fine with me because I do believe that politics is starting a grassroots level. So, if we wanted to talk about involving more people in politics in general, let's do it on a local level first. Let's not chase these federal seats so much because a lot of, and that's the thing I think everybody misses, not everybody, but most people who are not adept to the political process miss about politics is that a lot of the change that happens happens on a local level. So, focus more on your meds, on your councilmen, on your district leaders than you do that senator and the president and the people that's going to the house because, yes, every election has consequences, but the most consequences come from the people that are on the ground. And so, yeah, I do see a lot of people being active just, you know, using that voice. I don't know if that's going to equate the voting though. And so that's the other trick is, are you doing things to get people out to vote or are you just being an antagonist for the sake of being an antagonist? And I can't tell the difference. There's no day to the show, you know, who's going to do what come? What they said, no, right. Especially if you factoring the fact that I live in Maryland, or we live in Maryland. What's the state with your state? So you being pro-Trop doesn't matter because nobody, for the most part, he's going to win Maryland by like 30 or 40 points on the low end. Larry Hogan just scoffed at that. Winston, we'll give you the last word, bro, because you are in a swing state. What do you think? Like, obviously, Detroit is a place where it's like, you can probably, you can probably look ahead and say, okay, this part of Michigan will vote a certain way. But what do you think it's going to take for so many people who are undecided, so many of these counties that are evenly split? What do you think it's going to take pressurized, and I mean like social media or black folks in some method of communication to get folks activated and saying, here's what you got to do to turn this thing around or make it go a different direction. There's only five of y'all, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, what's that on Pennsylvania? No, that's your election right there. So you're sitting in the middle of run-up. So what are you doing or what are you seeing that's engaging people to take seriously their role in it? Well, unfortunately, like to Eric's point, there's a lot of people who are who I think are doing it in a negative way and kind of like just propaganda and just what they hear off of Twitter and the internet and it's interesting to watch and see people who are kind of disengaged previously in this process. All of a sudden, you're an expert because you read some social media posts and you spewing things that don't have any real legitimacy behind them, kind of similar to 45 in general. So, you know, that's kind of problematic as a whole here. I think to KD's point, what it will take in a swing stay like Michigan, like here is like people need to be involved. It's got to be a grassroots effort and you got to be in those spaces and places that were largely not really charged up prior to President Obama being in office. You know, there's a lot of folks around here. It's the first time I ever had to wait in line to vote ever when Barack Obama's first usually when we're going midterm election and other things like I can walk right in, walk right out. I don't have any problems as far as that goes. But so those same people kind of been disengaged ever since President Obama left and it's got to be a grassroots effort and we on the clock. I mean, it's you know, we can be voting. Some folks have already a lot of folks. What I thought was interesting last watching the debate was people were already like my votes already and he's lucky. Like I saw like three or four tweets like he's lucky my votes already in Biden because this ain't really giving me anything. It's not really giving me a whole lot to go off of or really be encouraged during foods buy. So in general folks, I mean, it's kind of late, but if we're going to say to make sure that we handle business in Michigan, it's got to be a grassroots effort. It's got to be people on the ground educating those communities in areas where folks are not normally involved in the process or don't really see a value or necessity to be involved in the process really and just helping them understand that. I mean, from my perspective working youth development, you know, I got a lot of first-time voters who we are trying to make sure understand I had to battle with my mentee going call them back and forth texting. Like you don't understand how imperative it is for you to be involved in engaging this process. You can't just sit on the sideline and then complain about nothing being done on the east side of Detroit because, you know, they don't really care, but you're not giving them any effort or put put in any fuel to the fire to make them want to care about the things that matter to you. So it's got to be grassroots. It's got to be people who are on the ground already who are willing to get engaged and involved and help engage and involve other people in that space. Every vote counts, man. And one thing about this pandemic, there's no good time for a virus outbreak. But to have that in the middle of a consequential election like this, where HBCUs typically would have been hosting these candidates, would have been hosting these town halls and these debates, and the young people would have been out there registering people to vote. And some of the campuses that are open, they're still marching through the streets and marching to the polls and all that. But how much activity are we missing? Because a lot of these campuses are not open and you're not seeing HBCU students flooding the streets. Like that's what we do, vote. And so you have a major, major body of activity that's just not there because of a virus. So, you know, I'm trying, man, because I think they're doing anything on social media and all that, but it's just not, it's not the same vibe. It's not the same as seeing a scene of Texas Southern students walking, you know, walking to the polls. But even with college suppression, it's nothing like that. But Texas may flip. We're voted. Yeah, in Texas, he's actually, Biden is holding the head. Yeah, Texas, I mean, I don't live here and I've seen it, I've seen it, and you can use it, because I'm a hair stylist. And to that point. And he went over it. I'm going to vote for him. But to this point, more people have voted already in Texas than voted for Trump the last time. True. So again, just have a vote, have a vote. Listen, if Texas goes blue, whatever number he wins by, you might want to write down a let's take the note on the coronavirus and spin this forward. So we've been talking regularly since the outbreak about what the outcomes would be for HBCUs. And it was just a couple of weeks ago where people were saying, oh, you know, HBCUs are doing well. They're managing this thing. People are not getting sick. It seems like we got the keys. A week later, now you're seeing campuses with increased numbers. Florida Memorial is up. People are losing jobs. You're seeing a number of campuses reporting increases. North Carolina A&T, which was part of the highlight package of saying how good we're doing dozens of cases over a week. And so that whole Labor Day get together and let's go stand around outside of the cookout. Now we're starting to see the results of that. The country's going up on cases. HBCUs are going up on cases. And I will start with Oona and Tay because Hampton University, I believe is the first HBCU to have announced as of this week the first that will go all virtual for the spring semester. So, Taylor, you had some interesting comments about the reaction of alumni. And I think this has to get out there because I think that this showed what coronavirus fatigue is really all about. So tell us what you shared in your group with the Hampton alumni once that announcement was made. Um, so, you know, warms my heart to hear that it's still virtual. I'm just someone that doesn't believe that students and folks need to be on campus during this time, even though as much as I would want them to. And yes, traditions may be lost and experiences may look different. And of course, we always want everybody, you know, to have what we have historically seen as a traditional college experience. But I am all for us being safe and healthy over just having people be on campus in spaces, especially on campuses where you can't necessarily control in some ways. And so Hampton announced that it will be virtual. And of course, most folks, majority of people were like, you know, supported of it. Of course, you can always have the grief of wanting to have students on campus to experience a similar experience that many of us Hamptonians have experienced. And for me, it was hard to see that some of my alums, you know, were upset about the decision, feeling that we were stripping students of their first year and freshman experience, you know, not being able to stay in their dorm, never going to have the opportunity to sit in as a tWitchell trendsetter or, you know, to be James Hall, you know, one of the ghetto boys, Harkness Hall, H2 Smooth, you know, all of these things. Some folks were making comments about like, how are they going to be real Hamptonians? And I struggled with that because what does that mean if the Hampton experience is only commodified by, of course, the dorm in the dorm step show, which was gone by the time I got there in Hampton? So am I a true Hamptonian or not? So it's like, it started for me to challenge the notion of what is this process and processes and performances. And for some folks, Hayden experienced for folks to have a true HBC experience. And so I was struggling because some people were getting rid of the safety of our students, faculty and staff members, because they felt that the true Hampton experience is no longer going to be offered. And it's like, because the student can't live in a dorm during a pandemic, or they can't experience a spring fest in person. And I struggled with that because I was like, all of this is happening during a pandemic. And so what does it mean to be a true Hamptonian? What does it mean to be a true, like, Baristow or family? Like, if we can't fit in here, are we no longer family? Are we no longer supporting each other? What does that mean? And that scares me when I have, when I see that there are low homes, who might possibly treat students who didn't have a first year experience at Hampton differently because they're not a real Hamptonian, because they didn't stay in the dorm. Oh, now are you going to say Hamptonians who are virtual this year? No, because I'm teaching them. Absolutely not. But I also understand as one who has worked in res life, the the bonds that are built. Yeah, that's major. Like, if ever a parent asks, you know, should I should my child stay on the yard? My answer is always yes, always, because there's learning that goes on beyond the classroom. So I kind of feel bad for them. Because how do we serve that? Right? Is that look like? And if we don't, are they getting the enriched experience that is an agency? Yeah. We haven't quite figured that out yet. Do you think that that changes it? So let me let me throw this towards because you you went to FAMU residence life at Florida A&M is is up there is good people would respect respect that yard. Obviously, you miss learning opportunities. Obviously, you miss social development opportunity. But is that do you think it's that critical to any college experience? And is it that critical to the HBCU experience? Because from what Taylor is saying, it's almost like you miss the whole thing. Like because of this pandemic and y'all so scared, you've missed the whole meaning of what an HBCU is. Is that true? I would say no, because at least for me, the pillar of APC experience with the classroom experience, which is still a black experience. I didn't live in those things they called dorms and fan. And the kids out, I mean, right now, we have these families homecoming week. And it's my 10 year from my freshman year. And obviously, we don't have it. So we're doing this virtual stuff. Talking about how the new dorms the kids have, they have cable, they have singles, they have their own bathrooms, and they're saying that these kids aren't the same. And they have against different newer facilities based on, you know, the prison style facilities we lived in. But all jokes aside, I don't think it is. I think that in general, you do make more bonds when you're on campus, you do make more relationships. But in some ways, virtually, you do have the opportunity to focus more on your education, focus more on kind of those interactions in the classroom. I think that can be just beneficial. But just because we're a virtual friend, that won't be virtual forever. People will still go back, they'll still create bonds, we're still going to pledge, we're going to draw. I mean, all things are going to happen. So I think that, I think, I think that maybe I've seen the virtual line. First of all, I want to ask you something, you'll agree, how many of you, how many of you have been online with COVID? What you just asked us? Oh, good. I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, You didn't wanna hear that from me though? That was his home to least-object, I don't even know if that wasn't on that was not on today's like list. So I don't know. Because a lot of that fairly unfairly the conversation starts with with a and T. Because they were one of the schools that were highlighted as they're handling this well. And they had to because North Carolina forces them to open be open and to deal with covert 19. But to see the numbers going up Laurel and the school isn't saying all right we're going virtual. They're saying all right we've had a cluster in this dorm we've got a cluster in the men's basketball team we've got a cluster in the football team and in the margin band. Moving on is that is that ideal for A&C or is it do you wish they were going a different direction with it. I mean I think you know granted it's been years since I've been on campus so who knows how that Internet is this decade but I would hope that. I mean I know all schools right now are starting to come out with their plans for spring semester so I would hope that they would recalibrate and reconsider. Especially since virtual homecoming is starting in a couple of days so I mean I think granted with the UNC system I have no idea what Chapel Hill and the rest are doing right now but I feel like for A&T to at least as much as they can do within that. Talking to parents I mean they don't have the capacity they don't have a hospital on campus they're not Howard so I feel like. Especially at the end of the semester seeing what the numbers look like around finals time I think they're going to need to put their foot down and just say you know it's not safe and whatever hits they get financially you just going to have to eat it. Because it's like do you want to owe money or do you want multiple losses. I also think it's a time to reimagine what again I'm going to keep saying it every meeting that I've been in. No matter what nothing we've ever done in this life is going to be pre pandemic after this and so I think we even need to start reimagining how we view our school calendars how we view just experience in general. I think it was really dope that in the letter that was sent to families that President Harvey said like you know when I spoke with students they were like hey. Can we get some wellness breaks next semester because we tried it out this first semester and we noticed that like yeah we aren't having all of these extra breaks but like we need it mentally because we're doing so much. Can we move to asynchronous because some of us on the West Coast and getting up for this class is not working and so that is what I see is like us moving into reimagining how we're trying to reimagine you know homecoming experience you know post pandemic. Are we still going to offer a virtual opportunity to still engage once who cannot be here physically so what are we going to start doing now post pandemic when it comes and how are we reimagining our experiences and reimagining our learning reimagining you know maybe how we were doing this we can rethink and we can actually do because we were forced at hand to do it so how can we now incorporate it and be even more intentional once we do come out of this because we will because as Black folks we do and we will always shall overcome though none of y'all start singing but I just think it draws and like how you know Laurel said to come back together to think about alright just in shake this first semester what can we do. That's what I hope and ask for all of us who are in the higher ed landscape and just even as HBCUs and as alums like and all of we're doing virtual has offered new ways of thinking and I hope and pray that it stays as we move into our physical lives coming back together. Interesting point because I think one of the one of the things that a lot of schools try to do to to mitigate this is to say okay we will go home before Thanksgiving. And so that way as the months get colder and the virus gets more more harmful or more easy to spread will we won't we won't be around you won't be here but guess what you're going to be at home. And you're going to be doing you're going to be with family for Thanksgiving you probably will be with family for Christmas Winston in terms of the students that you're talking to and that they're going to campuses where they got to go back in the spring. Do you think that there's a concern not that they're coming home with COVID but that they'll catch it at home and then bring it back to the school. That's a good point. I don't I think largely the conversation is still centered around them bringing it home but that's I mean bringing it back to school as a whole another. Then I'm curious to see how it goes like Hampton is the only official I think that we have to this point but I'm you know it's still early it's still very early for other schools to kind of change course as well. So I'm curious to see how it goes. It takes it takes one school typically to start kind of leading the charge to have people thinking differently. Maybe Hampton is that school in this instance like kind of how they were in the in the fall. And so it's kind of to see that the value or the concerns that might be legitimate for people coming back to campus. I think at the end of the day what we know it often boils down to is the dollar you know what I mean how look at the Laurel's point what kind of hit are you going to take and are you willing to bite that bullet in order to help you know not have catastrophic you know issues that can arise from it. I know in general I think I'm hoping that there's more people like Taylor's at the table. I don't know how optimistic I am that that's the case that people understand that you're going to have to reimagine and reinvent these things. And even towards this point that it's going to look we're going to come out of it at some point we're going to be on the other side of this and how we start moving in the direction to make that work. And I think to Taylor's point it's really got to be how we can reimagine reimagine rebrand and re talk about the agency option as a valuable option for a young person that's not centered around everything happening in the yard or in large groups or what have you but these other value systems and other value like or said the classroom to the classroom a rich black experience with the with the professor that looks like you and other people to look like you is still valuable and how we package and talk about that going forward I think it's going to be pivotal. I mean and that that should be starting now those conversations and that and that positioning should start right now regardless to whether or not everybody's back on the campus in the spring or not. And we need to start having these conversations with the value of our schools and why they're valuable and the new ways we can reimagine positioning that to the masses. Katie do you think that people at this point of the virus do you think that they're taking it seriously to the point that when it's first started we were still standing around in groups we were doing all that. And we were doing OK because I think that we just don't we don't have fret houses and all that other stuff where a whole hundreds of people can can gather indoors. But do you think that with all the common black since folks have applied over the course of this virus do you think that that they're still sensible about it and in the winter months with Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's and all that that we will apply that during those times where we're normally getting together. It's two sides of this. Some of us. Yes. Some of us have just grown fatigued. Right. And so we miss traveling. We miss our friends. We miss our family. And so we're taking a risk that you probably shouldn't but you really can't blame them because you're just tired of sitting in the house and sitting around especially for those of us who have a little bit of resource and can afford a rental car for the plane ticket. While she definitely taking a risk that I couldn't do in my household and my wife and that is with child. I refuse to take a risk like that. So do I think those common sense is being applied. Some of us those of us that have been educated enough to know that this pandemic is very much real. Those of us who are around medical professionals who are stressed out friends and family that know personally working still working 10 12 hours a day or five days a week. If you see that and it affects you in that way. It's taken the seriously but some of us is just also fatigued and really don't believe anything that they hear especially because you got federal government who's lied to you since January 1 when this thing when we should have been alerted and it's lied to us since March and then double down on a lot. And then loud again last night on that debate stage. I mean I just posted a share that the statistics last week about how the hardest hit areas are definitely in the Maria States and whether people like to hear it or not. Those are the states that didn't take it seriously enough and listen to the 45th president of the United States and now they're getting ravaged. And if Merlin struggling without abundance of resources John Stockings University of New York struggling their abundance of resources and their fantastic medical system. I know Idaho. I do not have those those stellar medical institutions to speak of are struggling. It was like why watch the news report. One town only had a hospital with 10 bits. Right. It's like you got a lot of war areas like that. They had literally one medical center for 100 miles. Right. They're struggling. So you know I'm praying that Thanksgiving doesn't cause the next spike because there's a spike right now. Thank you flu. That flu cocktail mix that we've been wanting people about. I'm sorry that flu COVID cocktail mix that we've been wanting people about since June. It's happening. And you know we hope we hope and pray that we don't lose another 200,000 people. But you know like Van Jones said you know we all have right to this point. But he said it's literally a 9 11 every week. Eric I'll leave the record on this one to you. Do you think that institutions can keep yoyoing like this meaning there was the benefit of particularly for HBCU. Okay. We're you know the federal government going to send a whole bunch of PPE and a whole bunch of money to address this at some point those resources are going to run out at some point schools are going to have to stop this game of start stop. Okay. We're going to have students now we're not all right. We're not going to have them. You can't keep yoyoing as an organization like that. How much you know working at institutions. How much do you think that that's sustainable where you can change your mind midstream and it's interesting about Hampton because remember Hampton said we're coming back. And then like a week later said no never mind right before the semester started Morgan did the same thing. So do you think it's the same with that back of course like make not make it in my mind or kind of play out his goals or you know is that that work. I think it's interesting. Is there an interesting muscle on me. I think it's interesting and I'm going to like to a degree lean on Taylor's point because she needed a really good one. I do think it's interesting that Hampton is the one that's at least somewhat being first in this because Hampton if I'm not mistaken has the longest tenured president of any HPCU currently. And it kind of highlights this issue of leadership of a PCU because at some point you know the yoyoing it comes down from the top right. Oh we're going to do one thing or we're going to do something else. And I'm waiting for which school I can't say because I don't know which one it will be. I'm waiting for leadership from some institution to say not only are we going to remain remote until this truth we say for our students to return back to campus for capacity but also utilize COVID as an opportunity to literally thrust the institution into the future. There are I mean you're talking about the possibilities. We're going to be home by Thanksgiving. So what happens if you decide if a school decides to say oh yeah we're now going to move our semesters up so that they start in early August they in Thanksgiving. Oh now we may be able to have a winter semester which can benefit our students in the long run may cost more money but it may give us more money. Which of our campuses are making sure that they're building infrastructure on their campuses to make sure that you know professors can easily go into that classroom before live sessions. All of these courses are online opening up how many students can now be educated in an aspect of an HPCU education so even if a student can't physically be there they can get the HPCU education which now brings more money into our schools. How many how many of our schools are going to make the decisions where we take this opportunity to like really thrust ourselves into bring ourselves to the forefront and get rid of some of these over black and green chalkboards in our classrooms. Reach out reach out our money on our campuses to make our institutions better more competitive more accessible. There's so many things that we can actually do and it's interesting because when we have this trend of HPCUs where most of our most of our schools can't keep a president beyond five five years. We've seen two institutions most recently who literally for no reason other than the board trying to move this way around with moving presidents having to bring presidents back when they were doing good job shout out to Lincoln. And Jamie and and Texas right like all these things that our schools could really be doing to make themselves better institutions and bring in more black students who want to go to our schools. We could be doing right now they could be allocating a lot of the money that you know schools are trying to force having a non revenue generating football season or basketball season to do into our actual classrooms which our main purpose is to educate our students. Oh no football going up in the spring bro. Oh is it going to make more money than what a baby. Now that actually makes no sense because most of the major conferences are playing. And so. So everybody. Which was sensible. I'm not blaming HPCUs that was fine. But now everybody all that guaranteed money you thought you were going to get in the spring. That's playing now. You're going to play us for their spring for their spring game. You're going to pay for their spring game but I'm saying like. A lot of one of the main one of the issues with a lot of HPCUs and why Paul Quinn looks as good as it does is because they dare to do something that has never been done to do something that has never been done. Right. Most of our institutions will refuse to do things that have they will do the things that have always done and then expect things to suddenly change. And it's literally insanity. And if we don't take advantage of this opportunity to now shift how we've been operating our schools. Then when we come out of it we may be worse. Maybe worse overall. We could have been better. Let's stay on the top of the money we're going to cut and go to our final topic because we ran a little bit over on that one. Morehouse Spelman Howard twelve million dollars from Morgan Stanley. Oh hum. At this point this is every week you can set your watch to millions coming to Morgan. I mean I'm sorry. Morehouse Spelman Howard which is a good thing. But I'm not going to engage in a conversation about why did the elite HPCUs get all the money. Let's talk about what we're missing. So Fort Valley State also this week announced a one point one million dollar gift from Chevron to support their energy program. Southern University has had donations from Dow Chevron. So I guess to the tune of five million dollars or so over the last two weeks. So everybody complained over the summer about Howard Morehouse and Spelman get all the money. But when other HPCUs get the money nobody talks about it. We talked about that with the morning or forty million dollars. Nobody said a word about it. We talked about that with and it's escaping me but other schools A&T got money. Nobody really said anything about it. So it's almost like where where do we end this cash twenty two because it's money. It seems like it's money coming from everywhere. It may not be to the point of one hundred sixty million dollars but there's money coming substantial funds. So at what point do we say all right we had it wrong. HPCUs are doing are doing now. I won't say pretty well but doing better than we've done in the past because a lot of different schools of a lot of different sizes are getting some substantial gifts that are going to make a serious difference. So Laura we'll start with you. Is it information issue like we just don't have the information or are we just stupid and just love to be stuck on the headline. Howard Morehouse Spelman get all the money. The answer is B all of the above. I think often just with anything especially if you look at activism we only pay attention to people who are the most visible already visible. Already on the channel who are already checking if you use Twitter and people misunderstand that the whole world isn't on Twitter. All your aunties and uncles and grandmas are on Facebook and then you got everyone else that's just still reading the newspaper. And so I think it's an issue one on the school's end of not having adequate comprehensive communication and marketing strategy even not just with donations but even with programs they already have. Like I always mention if people how South Carolina state has like a nuclear like a nuclear engineering program funded by the Department of Energy and they've had it for at least 10 years and nobody knows about it. And so and I'm sure other schools have things like that where they're not even just grant regular grant programs but they're funded by the government and nobody knows about it unless you are just on it that much at 19 or 18 and you want to do nuclear engineering and you happen to find out because you can't. They're not going to care. The average student is not like that. They're going to look for the amenities. They're going to start with homecoming. What what's near the closest big city and all those other things maybe they might care about a certain faculty member if whatever they're looking at. But I think between stuff like programs of study or just where the money is going even if the school is getting all this money. Is it going to be put into play next semester. Is it going to be put into play two years from now. Is it going to get tied up and audit. So that's also my question to like is this just part of the overall like oh we care about black people now here. Here's a check. It looks good for me. We've already seen that philanthropy is part of big business and it's a way for people to not pay taxes. And so I just feel like I feel like this is an opportunity for schools to like will take advantage of it while it's coming but also don't get comfortable and then to actually use the money. Don't just say OK you got I don't want to name drop Howard. I'm going to do anyway. Howard has gotten all this money. And so I know last week they just sent out a whole bunch of messaging about all the infrastructure updates they've been doing which people have been asking about. So I was like OK great because a lot of people were asking the right questions and I was like well I work there and I got nothing. So I think now it's finally starting to come out but with all the stuff that they've gotten this year. You know I hope that they're as transparent as possible with what they're going to do with that money and the process and things like that because I think especially now because of COVID and how we've all had to readjust. I think it's more imperative that all institutions be as transparent as possible because who learn diet straight and people are not in a position to drop in all this money and you can't even tell me where the money you expect me to still pay even though I'm not on campus. And I don't know where it's going. Katie do you think that these gifts will inspire and I want to make sure I choose the right word. I guess folks who aren't rich to adopt a more philanthropic approach to HBCU like in other words will it will it have like a trickle down effect. To make people to make people say wow you know all these companies are giving maybe I should give. Maybe I should give. No. HBCU alumni stands with their own with their money towards their institution. A lot of HBCU's have HBCU alum have this thing towards their institution so I absolutely don't think this is going to charge anybody to spend money. I'm an avid I have support content for Black behind me. Life. I'm proud of that. It changed my life right. If Coppin didn't do that for you or if your HBCU didn't do for you what it did for me you're not as likely to support. And so like Laurel say we need marketing. If you could just market the things that you're good at I think it would attract the donors that you need to attract. And part of that is just really we need to build relationships with our communities first before we start asking for money. When we report that in some regards. I think Coppin and Morgan are better at it because they buy property around their institutions like it's like it's a goddamn auction. A lot of institutions don't think like that if it is a possibility for them. It's just like build from within first and then say hey this is what we're doing this is where we support. Tell me where you need support. I don't know. That's probably why you're not getting money. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that because you just hit something and Laurel hit on it too. A lot of times there's this impression that you see million dollar gifts coming to these schools and that means oh Howard got it now. Howard got money. Howard out of years of deficits on deferred maintenance and going to scholarships to keep students from dropping out of school. And trying to give them raises that have been years overdue and staff raising. Trying to get benefit packages more competitive. Laurel shaking her head as she didn't get a raise. I didn't. There's an education necessary. Taylor I'll get this to you. Do you think that there's an education necessary from the HBCUs to alumni students to say yeah we got a bunch of money but guess what. And I'll tell you why I asked this because I did an interview with more house president David Thomas when I asked him the question that you get criticized for this. And the first thing out of his mouth was it costs five million dollars a month to run more health college. And even if you feel that one that HBCUs should require in a university run on ones like what is like higher it and how what how to run an institution and all of those things. One I think is important to even just use higher it in a university one on one freshman intro course because you can teach all the things that students want to learn. You can create a PR project create a PR like kit for your institution. You can create an engineering program you know develop all these things but even for alums. I think it's important that in alumni associations to create webinars about what does it mean to run an institution. What does it mean to do all of these things because oftentimes folks see that money has been thrown and institutions are fine. Or they hear about a partnership like with FFFVSU in regards to like Chevron like we should have been have this in the past when they've had this since 1983. They've been having this in just 30 years. I ain't even been here for 30 years. So it's like it's been here and oftentimes you know folks are like y'all aren't doing anything. And so it's like a catch 22 because it's like again with transparency. It doesn't always mean to be transparent about negative things. It also needs to be transparent about you know the great things that are happening as well. But there are so many things that go into this staff tone over rates faculty loss of institutional knowledge folks losing departments things happening. And so sometimes good things get lost up and sometimes bad things get lost up in these ways. But I truly feel that one I want to start educating people about the whole higher end entity. You know a lot sometimes about how hospitals are ran. We are learning more about how school districts are run. But when we think about higher ed we think about it from one lens and don't understand that we're there are many countries almost like it's a many country that is being ran. And so how do we educate and also bring people into understanding that. Because going back to your original point about you know folks saying like oh you have money you don't need to give you money. It's like well well well let's teach you about like debt management and all of these things. And so I think it's an opportunity again going back to reimagine me if we're going to move our community if we're going to move together as one. What are things that we can start educating and using as capital. How are we using our failures as capital to teach and to move up in ways. And how are we using what we're doing great to continue doing that too. So I if somebody want to hire me to develop. I am here. Feel free. I got a message. Let me let me throw this to you from a business perspective. So we've talked about before a lot of a lot of companies will donate and make big gifts because it's marketing for them. It is either to show you know underscore their commitment to diversity and inclusion or it is to strengthen their own you know workforce development and pipeline. Do you think that HBC you should be making more of an effort to reach out to alumni and donors and say hey can how can we blow you up. How can we make you more noticeable and had the community aware of what you're doing because a lot of times people will give to institutions and you never know it. They're doing it anonymously or they specifically say please don't announce this. I forgot to mention this at the top. So Tougaloo College just got a four million dollar gift. Another big gift that no one heard of until now. And it wasn't really covered nationwide. But the two the husband and the wife that gave the money actually gave the first half of the four million dollars months ago. You never heard about it. They just finished the payment this week. But they've been they've been giving for a while. And these are these are people that have given to UNCF very handsomely. They've given to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They've been giving the stuff for a minute but you never attached them to Tougaloo College is like these are some of your this is this is your most prolific donor. I know I should Tougaloo and other HBCs do more to say can we please put your name out there so that we can get the we can get the branding from being associated with your your your gift and your kindness to our institution. I think it should be a there should be a relay of information. So when you talk about getting to a university there is there's ways that you can highlight those gifts. But also you have to highlight your alumni. And I think that that motivates the company to do things. So if you have a great alumni who are with companies like you're more sandwiched more and change your city bank. Which I know more than I know how we're going to always do when you highlight your alumni. Those things catch the eye of people's HR departments people's given departments community engagement and you kind of create a cycle where you're highlighting alumni achievements. You're doing that these companies if you engage the companies that companies is. So I think that that's one area where HBCs have to get better at is alumni engagement. They're not engaged in terms of getting them to give and come back to games and go to gay lives where she suits. But really like she engagement from the engagement from the different perspective saying we've had this person who's left this department who's left this particular program. And they're doing well with this company. Let's have this company or back into the university and more people like this graduate. I don't think from my mother with Morgan they do a horrendous job of tracking the progress of graduate because I'm a graduate. And I've never got a phone call never got an email about what I'm doing in my career. What people like me are doing in our careers. I mean I have a friend who's gotten to gotten to work with MLT. Nothing more than that. So I think that it's unfortunate because one way that you can increase enrollment is to say look at all these graduates we have. But you can't do that if you don't track your graduates. And really it's free. I know for instance in the business school of Morgan there's plenty of secretaries and men who could pray a little Excel document and track our career goal. But we don't we don't value that. I think it's less about talking about the companies or even who's giving but saying how are we bringing the case to entice Morgan. How are we putting our school in a position to really show that we're producing really strong product. You can just say we're first in the country to produce engineers where those engineers working what products are the engineers on. What could that have been a part of in Baltimore and D.C. and New York. But you don't have any information. You can tell me we can get a degree. But we can't see their true economic impact. And the impact is that of black communities. And again when you go from you go from Polly to Morgan to turn whiting that changed the family. Because you've gone from an inner city high school to one of the biggest companies in the world that changes the family. But I bet you Morgan can give you a number. Well let me ask you this question because that's an interesting point. And I'll throw this at you. Whose responsibility is it because you would think that OK. Most schools do a good job of sending the alumni an email or sending them a letter saying hey please update the information. Let us know what you're doing. If you are if you have a success story email this if you you know if you just change your address tag here. But if the alumni don't update the stuff then what. So what what what tips what what's the tipping point for alumni to say I want you to find me. I want you to ask me for money. I want the alumni magazine. Listen I had what was that September 19th where I gave I attempted to give to all of all of the issues that I attempted. I couldn't do the Morgan. I even called my banks and like is there something wrong with my card. There was something wrong with the site. I tried to. So first off have an updated system like how can I'm trying to put money at you and you don't even catch it. So that's number one. The simple stuff to if you somebody gives money you don't have to tell who it is. You could you could I mean if they if they don't want to be known it's anonymous cool. But let the people know everybody got an ID put it on the IG. Let's go run it like all this secret stuff like I don't I don't get that like just tell the tell the business like why we just now find it out. Granted we're we're among people who will tell us right but that's us. What about other alumni who don't have those those networks and aren't running in those circles like I don't understand all this secret stuff like. Just give me the link so I can give you my money. Clean up a link because babies Hamptons was not Hamptons University alumni office like has come hit a complete 180 post like 2013 and I'm happy for because it was a struggle in some ways trying to engage beforehand. I am someone where I get overwhelmed quickly and if I struggle I'm I'm logging off like I don't I don't like to be overwhelmed with too many process like with too many. I email and y'all like do it here and I'm like I sent that yesterday and they're like oh you ain't got you know so when I get annoyed I check out some I talk about in therapy but this ain't my therapy session but when I get annoyed you know I pull out. But a lot of a lot of HPC's deserve credit because they have improved over the last decade. I know only got a testimony about Morgan Winston. I know has come up for a lot of alumni given central there are a lot of central states. I mean there are a lot of schools that I've covered that have said we've got a lot we've got a lot better at engaging young love a and T we've got a lot better at engaging young alumni. They're tackling they're doing 40 under 40 awards. They're doing all these things that that that make young alumni pay attention and want to give so that we do got to give them some credit. But Eric I would ask you so if you looked at Winston for example or UDC and said here's the thing that they do well to really speak to me or speak to people my classmates and people I went to school with to get us involved. Here's the thing that they do well. Well you know Winston said on state and UDC. Those are different. Yeah Winston say I'm going to give them their credit because you know one of the biggest things you know the 40 under 40 or whatever some of the year is kind of a big deal. I've had a handful of friends who were doing things that I mean yeah I got talked to on a regular basis but even these people who friends of mine I mean I pay attention to what they're doing in their professional rounds. But I see what they have going on online they do a really good job as far as using Instagram. I remember distinctly when the Young Alumni Council was started and the Young Alumni Council I feel like it was really necessary because just to be frank the National Alumni Association really wasn't speaking to me. It wasn't speaking to the people who were graduating at the time I was graduating because honestly speaking we attended vastly different institutions. That's right. And I think that gets lost in translation too because it you know when when a school is progressing when the school is doing better as it should be doing over time. I mean it's true. The building I stated in my sophomore year was Wilson Hall. Wilson Hall was built in 1994. Before that they had really built anything new around there going back to like the original freshman life calls. Then 2000 hit and literally speaking like six different halls on the campus were built since then. The amount of students that came out of there the amount of things that students have done the amount of people that I know that I remember like random events and parties and being out in the yard randomly with PhDs now. We do a good job of celebrating them. I'll give it that what I've seen at other institutions however is with Winston a lot of us are bigging us up. So we make sure that the school knows and I'll give us credit for that. We communicate and make sure that the people know what I've seen with other schools and with pages that I've ran with schools that I've worked at. There's a LinkedIn page and you bring in literally everybody who's ever attended your institution. So every single time that they got a job knows that pops up when they change how they change. They completed coursework somewhere that pops up and something changed. They got a new award that they put on a LinkedIn page. It's literally all right there. It's not even that hard to do that work. What can you do with that? You could take that information put it on an Instagram page where your current students are following. So now not only are you big enough your alumni making them want to donate but now you have connections that you're creating with the current students there who now have to see somebody who went to the same school they went to. They can do what they're doing. All of this is like just working with what's already made available to you that you don't have to really do any work to do because LinkedIn is free. It speaks to it. There's certain things that are just free at this point. Yeah, a lot of those offices because a lot of times you have people working here and all that kind of stuff. And that's tough. Alumni affairs may have to be one of those. This is the transition. Go ahead. Well, what I'll say is that, you know, Winston, they had a guy, I'm not going to say his name, but he's a pretty decent guy. He was working there at Winston. He didn't, I mean, he came from the HSU background. Winston was his first, you know, position, like was one of his first positions as director of alumni engagement. And it was me and him at a real print conversation. It was what it took. He's no longer working there. He's working at a really nice school here in Maryland. It's much different. And it's so interesting in how easy it is for people that certain PWUs to give to school that they really don't have a connection to other than their degree. And for us, who we really want that, that relationship, like we need more than that. People still hold them registered to school saying, oh, well, I already paid them for my degree. You're like, well, your degree wasn't free to use every single day, deal with it. It's okay. But just all the little things that we just have to do, we unfortunately have to do. Winston, we'll give you the last word. There is a tipping point for everybody for support. And I've always said, you know, if HPC is going to grow, it has to be more than just HPC graduates. It's going to have to be black people. That's going to have to be black America's destination for support. What is the tipping point that you would leave people with to say, even in a pandemic, even when things changing. This is why HPC has continued to need your support today. I mean, for me, it's in the stories that, you know, I think KD and Ores kind of mentioned a little bit. HPC has changed lives, you know, just for no uncertain, no better way to say it. It changes people's family trajectories. I've seen it too many times. You know, I think that was kind of what awakened me to kind of really understand the value of having not attended one and undergrad myself. It's just seeing how it's able to foster and grow a person and change, you know, their family's trajectory. Like I said, and so I think there's just so much inherently valuable in that for a person of color, whether or not you went to one or not. If you're up at all, invested or care about the advancement of us collectively, you have to invest in these institutions. I think the sororities in this country, shout out to the AKAs and DELs and Zetas and other organizations, they have shown, you know, like they typically do, shown the way for investing in what's important. And these next generations and whether or not you went to one or not, they're still inherent value and making sure that young people of color are being educated properly. And we're investing in the resources and ways that are allowing them to be successful. And there's not a there's not a better investment you can make it to me and then in the young black person, particularly. And that's where the majority, a lot of them are educated at these institutions. So we have to understand the value and the professors that are there, the faculty that are there, the young people that are there, the areas in which most of them inhabit that are largely a lot of times are inherited by black folks. In general, we have got to understand the value in that. And I think it's also a charge on the institutions themselves and finding ways. Again, this thematic thing about reimagining, you know, engaging your alumni in those ways to help them also understand to lead those charges in those communities to people that they know who may or may not have gone to HBCUs or gone to those particular institutions. But we got to find ways to also have them be charged up and engage those folks as well. You know, mission in class and having the 40 under 40 and other ways when you go to these parties alumni parties on campus at homecoming, tell them you got to fill out the form about what you're doing with your life to be able to go to the party. I bet you get some more forms in there. You know, you got to find ways. You got to engage them. You need to be charged up. You need to be charged up after the produce. Good. You might be spelled wrong in a company's name might be spelled wrong, but you need to be on the yard. Grass roots. Again, you need to be at the parties with the forms with the little iPads. Like, hey, fill this out. Put this in before you add that. You know, fill this out. All that. We got to find a way to do that. That's the only way we're going to be able to lead those charges and change the check. We have got to do that. We got to find ways to do it. Yo, man, this is a fantastic conversation. I want to thank each and every one of you for a short notice. That's our thank you brothers and sisters. I love you. I appreciate you. Over time today, since boys brought up pandemic legend, so that was petty enough. Are we going to leave it right there? Thank you. Thank you. I'll let him go. I'll let him go.