 HBCU Digest Radio welcome back to another engaging conversation about historically black college universities and their impact on higher education and the landscape beyond it. Today our privileged guest is Dr. Kenyatta Lovett. He is a proud graduate of Howard University and the executive director of Complete Tennessee and Advocacy organization that studies researches and promotes access and opportunity in higher education in the great state of Tennessee. Dr. Lovett is indeed an honor to have you on this afternoon. Oh, thank you for having me and a huge fan of the Digest and I'm glad to be part of this conversation today. You're far too kind, brother, especially from towards the Morganite and from somebody who went to Howard. Let's start here. So you guys issue a major major report this week that outlines some of the gaps that still persist in Tennessee for black and minority students in higher education, particularly in the public four year, four year specter. Can you talk a little bit about that report and the reason why this is a big deal for folks who may not be aware. Tennessee in recent years has kind of become a breeding ground of sorts for experimentation in higher education. They were among the first four free community college. A lot of the initiatives you see with pipelines have originated in Tennessee. So talk a little bit about first about your report and then your scope of the way Tennessee is kind of maneuvered policy wise and how you think that may have impacted some of the data that you've seen. Sure. And our report, this is our third report that's come out for the state of higher education in Tennessee. The purpose of that is really to package various reports and research on outcomes with a specific lens on equity to really highlight to the people in Tennessee and policy makers, all of our different community and state leaders, you know, how are we doing in higher education? Believe it or not, most had even when the first report was released, most had a perception that graduation rates were in the 80 or 90% area and definitely they thought that African Americans and students of color or students of color and low income students were graduating at almost an equal rate. So the impact of this report, even in the third edition, has really raised an awareness to Tennesseans, given all to your point, all the great progressive policies that we've implemented, that we've got a lot more room to go, a lot more space to cover, ground to cover in terms of taking this policy that we put out there, this policy agenda and turn it into actionable outcomes that really benefits all Tennesseans. So the good thing about this third report, a lot of states still have challenges using the word equity from our first report. This has been a conversation, and I think a lot of people credit our organization and our work for that, that equity, while it might be a painful conversation, we are able to have that. And there's some surprising anecdotal outcomes that have come from just that report and what it means to a college president, what it means to a city or a county mayor, and definitely what it means to legislators and policymakers. Let's get into some of those hardcore numbers. So it's not foreign to look at a data set like this and say, okay, we would hope African American particularly would be doing better in this space. But you guys are breaking it down in terms of completion, in terms of enrollment, in terms of retention. So there are a lot of trends to kind of unpack here. What stood out most about what you found in this particular data set? Yeah, and I want to add too, in the previous report we even went into, we dove into unemployment rates by education and rates, which is even scarier. But the graduation rates, you know, from our report, you see that trend line. What's really alarming both on the university and community college side is the gaps are not necessarily closing. And for our universities actually just presented today to a group on equity, you see African Americans at our four year institutions that graduation rate is actually dropping for a lot of institutions. So there's something really scary going on with the performance of our four year institutions where African Americans are not as successful as their peers, but even worse, sometimes they seem to be, the gaps seem to be widening. And I guess the scarier backdrop behind all this is that in Tennessee, you only have one historically black college. So the numbers that, or at least publicly public historically black college. So with that, with the success that you see in the four year public sector, the majority of that number is driven by Tennessee State, right? Yes, that's a dominant, dominant share of the African American performance. But believe it or not, and we always caution, because a lot of institutions puts back from just the graduation rate alone. A lot of times, when we control, we do analysis and we'll control sometimes for race and income. Quite frankly, sometimes when you analyze it that way, an HBCU like Tennessee State actually does better than its peers. So while a lot of times here the lion's share of the students are coming from our HBCUs, the performance of our non HBCU institutions is much worse in a lot of cases. Talk about the, the, the role of I guess Tennessee State, obviously, because, you know, this is a, you know, a platform for HBCU conversation and analysis. But obviously, you know, you have a lot of institutions around the state, middle Tennessee State has an initiative for completion and retention for minority students. You can say the same thing at, you know, the place like UT Knoxville. And your report actually breaks it down by the UT system as well as those non UT schools. Even when you factor in the notion that a lot of the non HBCU institutions are admitting, I guess a respectable number of black students and the majority of those students are pretty college ready. What kind of perspective does it grant, you know, somebody reading this report about just how heavy a low Tennessee State is carrying because they're, they're admitting a wider, a wider swath of students and seemingly doing more to get them out in six years. Yeah, and I think what we've tried to push, and I'm very proud that in Tennessee, we have set up a statewide HBCU initiative. I think we're one of the first in the nation to do so with Brittany Sims of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission leading that. There's so many things that I think are predominantly white institutions and non HBCU institutions can learn from HBCUs overall. One is we highlighted that report a thing, the concept of faculty diversity and having shared experiences that are leaving classroom in terms of student success. If you look at that report, you'll see, which is really interesting is that Tennessee State University is extremely diverse when it comes to faculty diversity. I mean, it's not even a close comparison to their peer institutions. And actually, right after our release on Tuesday, we had a talk with some higher education researchers. And we talked about what that dynamic means and what it means for higher education institutions where faculty of color don't feel like it's a welcoming place, or it's a place in which they can actually make a difference for the students that look like them, whether it's coming from first generation backgrounds or low income backgrounds or being of color. And it was an interesting dynamic as well of when faculty members at predominantly white institutions are of color. They spend probably a lot more time mentoring the students that look like them because they know those supports aren't there. It's just sort of innate and in the system for HBCUs. I just am a proud graduate of all my degrees are from HBCUs and that level of support is something that meant something to me and definitely for my family. But I think there's a lot that PWIs should think about when serving students of color. But I think most of the advice is going to come from definitely our HBCUs. Although the graduation rates aren't where they should be, the way in which they support and produce outcomes for those students is something we need to take notice of. And it's also within the context of not just race, but as you mentioned income diversity, because you have a number of factors that play into six year completion and retention rates and all those things. So a lot of times when you see a report like this, people kind of see the bottom line. But I would imagine as a researcher, you see it from two perspectives. So what does this mean for institutions and what does this mean for policymaking? And how did the two meet in between to make for a more successful opportunity for all kinds of students? So along those two lines, how would you kind of break down how institutions see the data and how lawmakers should see the data and the opportunities or the challenges in between? Well, it's important to note that for Tennessee, our public higher education institutions are funded solely on outcomes, 100% outcomes. Exactly. So this type of a report emphasizes that there's a lot more work to do. And there were a lot of college presidents that were there during the release and have responded since then. Our hope is for institutions, but not just the presidents and their VPs and staff and faculty, but also for the governing boards. We hope that they will start to sit down and have really robust conversations on are we really doing the best for all of our students? And how can we close those gaps? But I think one thing that we found really important, our work at Complete Tennessee is getting that president, faculty members, staff and even some governing board members in a car on a plane to go and see what exemplary outcomes would look like, say at a Georgia State or Howard University or Spelman or Morehouse for that particular student group that they're struggling with. I think it's really important to think about that. And then for policymakers, we have to ask the question, you know, with the outcomes based funding formula and also with a lot of free college programs and other initiatives. If the gaps are not closing, and if sometimes performance of certain students is actually decreasing, have we really intended the right behavior we need to make sure that all Tennesseans are graduating and realizing that quality of life we know they deserve? Given Tennessee's goal of having a certain amount of work eligible adults college credentialed by a certain time, and given some of the trends that you've seen over the last three years, do you think Tennessee today, as we're speaking now, is in a better position to achieve its goals and to include black and other minority communities within that goal at a respectable level? Or are we further away from it? And in either case, why? I think we're closer. And I think because the focus has been since 2010 on completion. And now again, we have this conversation with equity. It has uncovered a lot of serious issues out there that, you know, smaller groups are trying to work to attack. For instance, in Nashville, while we're seeing a great economic boom in the city, there are tons of communities, mostly those low income enough color that the unemployment rate is around 20%. And so the mayor here has embarked on a program that's going to really kind of mimic the Cooney ASAP model, understanding that free college alone doesn't really do it when you just talk in tuition. That there are other supports and wraparound services that are needed for those students who struggle when they get into college. You know, it also, when we start to measure things like attainment, I just noticed even this morning and it kind of depressed me a little bit, Shelby County appears to, and I could be wrong in this, but it appears to have dropped in degree attainment by 5% points from this year from last year, looking at the Lumina Stronger Nation report. And so it then forces a conversation. And I think what's interesting is that the workforce, our employers, because they have such a strong demand for talent, are leaning into this where before when it was just enrollment, they weren't necessarily that engaged as they are now. How can we make sure that all Memphians, all Nashvilleians, or wherever they are, how can I get more of a support for local talent that deserves those jobs, that quality of life? How can we help them? And so I think without a completion agenda without these programs and looking at the data to see what's working and what's not working. If we didn't have that in place, I don't think we would have the right measurements for the benchmarks to say, where do we need to go from here? And that's really part of what that report was about.