 Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, happy new year and welcome black. This is the HPCU Digest, Digest After Dark Season Opener, yes. We have a very full cast this evening, we have Midnight Winston getting them into Insert HPCU here, Laurel, the Aggie, not my brother Eric, Katie from Poppin and Dr. Una, the triple HPCU alum, okay, so tonight, you just got to get the grease. My degrees are at every HPCU year, oh well, living though, so like you got time, keep living brother, and you are somebody, you right, all right, so first segment just gonna hop right into it. This is actually, yeah, our first podcast since the start of the new academic year, typically we would make predictions, but we didn't do that this time, so this is that episode. So in the last two months of this panning time, we have seen a few outcomes across HPCUs in the wake of students repopulating their campus community. So first I want your opinions on how that's gone for your HPCU and or and in the collective sense. I want to know do you feel it was rushed, was it premature? Do you think this is signaling or contributing to the signaling that the pandemic is over? I would say honestly from the collective, it's been pretty good response I think. A lot of most of the schools have, I think have been in good position and seemingly been prepared to receive students, I would say particularly for us, a lot of our partner organizations like Clathlin, Norfolk State, Delaware State have done exceptionally well with receiving our young people and being ready for them, having things in place, being able to engage them responsibly, socially distanced, trying to be responsible about the events and things they do on campus and on the yard, to still allow them to have some sort of semblance of a normal experience. So there's of course outliers, Tiffany or Alma Mater included that maybe in some ways some things are not as expected with receiving the young people and things being prepared but in general I would say the collective is a whole, responding how we would expect and hope that they would respond dealing with our black and brown young people particularly. So I'd have to say overall I've been pleased with the response and optimistic about how they're trying to handle things moving forward, you know, that's just kind of like a big swoop. Like I said, there's people that fit on different forms of the spectrum in regard to the hundred and seven, but for the most part I've been pleased and our students have been received well across the country to various HBCU. So Winston, is there an HBCU in particular that you've seen do something that you don't have a partnership with? Oh, yeah, no, Bowie State. Dr. Johnson, I'm trying to holler at me, please, like trying to get this solidified partnership with Midnight Golf because eagerly I am I'm impressed and optimistic about their leadership, taking the stance that they took today or yesterday, whenever it was, shout out to them because that's that's the kind of institution we'd be happy to send more young people to shout out Bowie State for their response. Absolutely. And I think A&T has done a great job of, one, just providing information and being transparent. But I also think too, like what was said earlier, is that even with the best of intentions, there will be still be missteps. And this is still an ever-evolving situation. And I know you didn't get to it yet, but I think when thinking of like homecoming and things like that, I think schools moved a little too fast, not just that we're populating, but I guess the amount of students they expected to be on campus. And it's like, what I think, the process should have been is like, okay, let's focus on restructuring around getting students back on campus safely, managing vaccination status or access to campus, and then focusing on that. And then next year, think about, okay, homecoming and other events where it's not just students on campus, it's the public and people who didn't go to school and things like that. And that was one thing I did not like A&T doing. I don't want to see stuff in my email from, you know, speaking to alumni after you're asking me for money, then you're asking me, oh, do I want to join the conference call as we discuss homecoming? And I'm like, homecoming? And then, not to my own horn, but I'm gonna do it anyway, as a greatest homecoming on earth. And now that population for GEO, of the population for GEO, other people outnumber actual alumni and current students, it's Anderson, North Carolina. I don't really know what the state is doing. So it's just like, in Greensboro, I mean, that many people in Greensboro, it's just a snowballing situation. And they surveyed people and they said, well, how do you feel? And in the little Google form, I said, I was just like, no, like, this isn't safe. We still, everyone hasn't even gotten the booster shots. Everyone hasn't even been vaccinated. Let's start there. And I know the old heads want to be there. That's not safe. They already sent another email where they canceled basically being on the yard. The Greeks can't gather. There's no Aggie Fest. There's no parade. I'm like, so then why are we here? That's not homecoming. I don't know how I was doing. I don't know. But it's like, it's OK to wait another year. Next year is my 10-year anniversary. I would love to be there physically for that with a booster. But it's like, I'm not going to risk my health, even though I'm only 31. It's like, I think they should set an example. And like, again, once again, students should be your number one focus. You could focus on the money and other people and celebrities and Diddy and whoever later. Focus on your main stakeholders first, students and faculty and staff. Then you can get, you know, because we don't know how this is going to mutate. There's still people protesting about not wearing masks or getting vaccinated. Now that it's moving toward and this will happen, individual states and metropolises saying, oh, if you're employee of the state, you have to be vaccinated or now with Biden. And it's in there's federal precedent, so you can't really argue it. So it's like, what, you know, let's not, we have a wish list of things we want to do. But I think we also need to be a little bit more realistic. And in some cases, it seems like people didn't learn anything from the past year and a half, which is sad. They didn't and you break. Una and then KD. So I think Hampton did a good job. They, like Laurel said, well-meaning. However, the contingency plans that they have that the students came up with, from what I'm understanding, it's not realistic. If a student gets COVID, where are they supposed to go if they're out of state? Like I think about myself coming from Brooklyn, going to Hampton University, and if I were to contract COVID, where would I go? I got to take a Uber somewhere. I got to be around other people because I'm not coming home. So how does that work? Now I'm contaminating other people, putting other people at risk. We could have waited. It's about to be my 20 year. So with that said, don't do me off. So with that said, we're planning for our 20 year. But that's, you know what I'm saying? That's coming up. That's not right now. So we could have waited, especially because it's us. But it's definitely, you got people that, their frontal lobe isn't informed yet. It hasn't closed yet. And you're expecting them, we had the same conversation last year. Like we're expecting them to make decisions that adults would make. And they're not capable. So I think all in all, well-meaning, but too soon. To your point, because some institutions have been housing students at hotels. And I just keep thinking like, do we have the money for this? Are the money is going to run out for this? If students think they can get a staycation, will that make you think that's not going to, and we weren't going in and out. That was me being in quarantine or in isolation. At this point, it's not enough to scare people into being responsible. And I don't know how much money we got collectively to just spend on hotel costs. Like, we don't have it. I don't think, no, no, I don't think we don't have it. We'll have it. Katie? Yeah, funny man. And it's kind of fascinating that we're having this talk on the college level, right? Because I am a K-12 educator and we've been thrown in the classroom, which is much, well, I'm going to say much larger populations, but in much tighter spaces than college students. And I really don't have enough from my campus because copping is small. We don't do homecoming in the fall, so there are no gatherings to look forward to. So we're focusing strictly on academics, I'm sure. And I'm going to just say that no news is good news. So if they can stay in the classroom and nobody gets sick, I'm good with that. The other thing that's poking out in my mind as we talk about conversations we had last year, it was about this time last year with Jersey University presidents were echoing. At some point, we got to learn a little bit about COVID. And I think we're just seeing a fallout from that. I really think people have just decided that if you die, you die. There is no price that they're willing to pay to not go to school. So we're here. And then we just going to have to keep rocking, whether we like it or not, unless you just don't want to participate in the economy at all. And then that's on you. I feel it. I do. I do. But like, do we have life insurance for that? That's a whole other politics. I just said, if you die, you die. But like, do you have the life insurance to just up and die? If I'm being honest and thinking about the profile of the typical or the average HBCU student, if you are Pell Grant eligible at a varying level of low income, do you have, do your parents have, did your grandparents take out life insurance for you to just up and die? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not betting on that. But all right. I take your point. Chaotic question and Una and or Laurel touched on this. Do you believe that if we didn't repopulate so soon that homecomings could actually be a thing? Would you have wanted your HBCU to say, yeah, no, we're not doing on campus learning. We're not doing a residential campus. But this homecoming, this homecoming we will have, would you would you have like to see that for one weekend, though we can, y'all were able to come home, would you have preferred that then than what we're living through now? No. Okay. I concur. It's like the meme says, it's just not realistic. It's just not realistic. And then like, specifically with A and T, it's, and I don't want to sound prejudiced or anything like that, but it's like, I'm not really going south of Maryland. Oh, you ride about it before, before it was like, okay, I'm not going anywhere near the state of Florida. But that has since expanded. And it's like, and also at least from North Carolina, politically, it's changed a lot since I've been there. And so it's just like, I don't really know what I will be walking into. And then like, let's say they do have it. And it's just, okay, alumni only and people that actually have a diploma that says North Carolina A and T State University on it. What hotel am I going to stay at? Who was running that hotel? Where are their COVID protocols? Are they enforcing mask wearing? Who else is staying at that hotel? And they've already said Delta variant is highly, highly contagious. See, I have not been sick in, it'll be three years in two months. I've not been sick in three years. Including COVID. Not even the damn flip. Not even the common cold. I am not risking that to be amongst a horde of Negroes in the state of North Carolina and not even in Aggie land. Not even. I do not want green eggs and ham. And no, I do not want the Delta variant. I don't want it. Or whatever, whatever Greek letter we're on now, because I don't, I don't know. I'm sure they're under, look. There's a, there's a mirror somewhere. So when the Omega variant comes out, I surely will not. Will not. Okay. Eric, what do you, what are we saying? I say is, we don't even know if it's going to go for two letter chapters. Like at this point it's never going to keep going on. No, so the one thing I will say is, I think because we had all these festivals and concerts over the summer and spring and that's, that was the barometer of whether we can have homecoming or not. The problem is that you can't risk your customers dying because your customers have to keep returning in order for you to sustain. So that's why they're limiting homecoming events. But we knew these things were coming. Like I, I, I hope we're not playing the shot game. Like we knew what it was. I will say a few weeks ago, these students here had a 90s themed freak Nick party. And I was looking on the timeline. I saw that. And I said, that's your homecoming. You're welcome. Okay. Like I was just like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Like there are people who are complaining that students aren't wearing masks during academic hours in the academic buildings. But I'm like, if they live on campus and they're doing all this other stuff, do it really matter? Nope. It doesn't. But it does. No, no, no, it does not because if you, so it's not about, so don't think about the student-student contact. Think about the student-staff contact where they're doing things right. Right. The staff is knowing what they're supposed to do. You know, let the students kill themselves. Just don't, don't kill the, the 10-year professor that's been here for 50 years. But that we can't just easily replace. Oh, that's not why. And that's not because, so two things here. I agree. When you said returning customers, when thinking of students, even if they don't die, and I don't want to say it like that. But even if they don't die, there's still no guarantee that they will return next year. Because even now, especially those schools with housing issues and mushrooms and total people growing in the hallways, I'm not returning to that campus. I'm not returning to live. Plus, faculty and staff, whether they are old, immunocompromised, whatever, right now a higher ed, or even education period, is the great resignation. People not taking it no more. As you teaching K-12, you should already know this, that students are back in the classroom now. When they, the last time they were in the classroom, that may have been a greater two ago. So some of them may be behind, behind. Then, I don't know if this is the case for you, but you also may be a teacher where now they done through two new curriculums on you. So not only do you got to cast students up. Okay, I know they didn't do that. But in other, I've talked to teachers from other states, and they've been saying like, they want us to deliver two new curriculums. I'm still trying to cast these kids up, and we got to deal with parents, and we got to do this. And then at the higher ed level, it's the same thing where, or if you're at a campus in a state that does not have a mask or a vaccine mandate, and you out here, and you got students, you got 45 student class, only five of them is wearing masks. The other 40 don't care. So it's like, on top of everything else. So it's like them staff, faculty, them students, if they survive until next school year, they're not going to come back. And the students that they'll come back, that's money, that's enrollment, that's enrollment management. And I don't think anyone is really thinking hard about like, okay, yeah, they're complaining now, but what about next year? What about the dollars? Mackenzie Bezos only got so many dollars. And she might move on to another industry and say, oh, no, I'm going to focus on food companies or food employees now. So employees at Nabisco and stuff, they can get some dollars. Higher ed, you good. Ask the government. Y'all got new department of ed person, Hollad Biden. You're good. I would, I would add too, like all the people that's trying to change the system, right? So like, it's mad, like, okay, so in New York, we got a card. I was looking, trying to look for it while y'all was talking, but we got a card. Wasn't no other documentation. So it was, it was Oak tag. Who can't remake that? So when you're showing that, when you're showing that to, you know, to whomever that, you know, oh, okay, I got vaccinated, that joint, like that, the, the, the, the card that we got was sold 1990. Like it was ridiculous. So I know me, if I wasn't, if I am vaccinated, however, if I wasn't, and I was trying to shice the system, oh, that's simple. That's easy. On top of you have speaking to what Laura was saying, if you're going into the, here in New York City, if you're going to the K-12 classroom, students are mandated to get vaccinated. So you're walking in. I mean, granted, they, the mandate is going to go into effect on Friday by 5 p.m. You have to be vaccinated if you're NYC DOE, but students don't got to be. And if you're working with, especially working with the population under 12 years of age, hold on. So there's a lot of stuff. I don't think that the, the, the higher ups thought about prior to implementing I will say to your point on a, because in, if, okay, so at home in Detroit, they have vaccination sites, right? There is a whole system that they use to verify your vaccines. And it's not just this vaccine. It's all the vaccine. So in my head, I'm like, well, do our state institutions have access to that? The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Yes and no. Are they using it? Yes. And again, you got to think about, and this goes, this couples with education. Each state got a whole different system. It is not nationally like what you need to be. Yeah, that's true. It's not nationally consistent. So what Maryland doing is not what New York is doing is not what Crack Tucky is doing. It's not what Texas ain't doing. So it's like, it's, and that's why, again, it with, so like, when Una was saying about, oh, people can fake that, they're faking that. There's people that work at CVS and they say, give me the codes and I can give you the codes to put it in. Someone's bringing out that car, selling them $500 even though the vaccine free. I'm going to get the last word to Eric. The most depressing thing about this is that it really isn't that hard if people buy in. I work on a campus that has 40,000 students. It's real simple. It's put everywhere. Like every single day I go into the office, I got to go in and check in. They asked me questions like over the last 14 days, where have you been, what you've been around, what's the last few years on campus? Do you feel any of these symptoms? Like literally every single day, I got to do this on my phone. Right? Standard mandate. If you're outside, you don't have to have your mask on because it's open airspace. If you're inside, you have to keep your mask on. And it's so weird because I talk to other people that work in the same field and on much, much, much smaller campuses, you can't get people to be like, oh, well, you know what, I want to continue with school. I don't even want to be back on the crib right now. So we got all in-person classes. There are some online courses, of course. But our rate right now of people who are not vaccinated, okay, but they have to be by a certain time point, it's like at a 1.38 percentage rate of infection. Like it's utterly ridiculous to see what happens when people buy in. My question is, and this is probably a bigger issue with blackness, at some point, when are folks going to leave the conspiracy theories alone? Because I would get you most of the time. But unfortunately, this is impacting white people. They ain't about to lie about this. Like, it could be a lot of stuff they lie about. It's a lot of conspiracy theories. But if it was killing only us, then yes, I would question the vaccine. I get that. But it's killing them too. So at some point, stop going down to you two holes, stop listening to your favorite rapper who be lying to you on all their records anyway. It shouldn't be this hard. It really shouldn't be. Stop listening to your favorite NBA player. Stop listening to governors and senators who say, write to your own body, but then they outlaw abortion. Like stop listening to all of them. It shouldn't even be this hard at this point. Yes. Next topic or next segment. And I'm going to give Laurel the first go at this, because as it was happening in real life, we were texting back and forth. So of course, you all know that about four weeks ago at this point, at the start of September, there was the 2021 White House HBCU week. It came and it went grand opening, grand closing. Actually, the fam Ewan, the fam Ewan. So the fam you see the newspaper, they literally had a story or had an article and it said, did y'all know it was HBCU week? I said, yep, all righty then. So for those who tuned in, and as I said, Laurel will go first, please share your experiences and your opinion on how engaging the conference was. How do you think they could improve? I will also say that there were things that I was looking for to be settled that are still actually not settled. So for instance, there is an executive director right now, but in terms of comparing the Biden administration to the Trump administration, the Trump administration did not name one until October. So we are two days from October, I guess, but to be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is unacceptable. And to have an HBCU alum who was also Greek in a position of authority who is, you know, that's who we wanted, who we came out for, like we expect more. So Laurel, you got it. Let's see, where do I start? I mean, just saying that it was very ghetto is just not an all-encompassing word because I was registered and dealing with technology, I always approached technology as if I was an old person in terms of accessibility. One, it was not accessible for anyone that was differently abled, older than 50 because I was registered, I registered a month ahead. Why am I looking at XYZ session? And there was no link. There are no instructions. You're telling me, oh, we're going to talk about this and these are presenters, here's their bio, but I can't see anything. So I don't know what you're talking about. Two is the content of the sessions. I've been going to this conference on and off for the past five, six years. So each time it's always STEM, entrepreneurship, financial aid, and then we're going to sprinkle something random like international aid or something else in the end, even though you have the entire government at your disposal, disposal, not disposal. So it's like you have entire government that does so many things that even the people in government don't know what everybody do. And yet each time you have the conference, we're just going to focus on STEM, entrepreneurship, financial aid, and maybe throw in that we have some jobs opening at Social Security Administration. You're not going to talk about the Presidential Management Fellows, which just opened yesterday. You're not going to talk about the fellowships like Wrangle and Pickering that are funded by the State Department. You're not going to talk about the many, many, many pathways, internships, and jobs, and co-ops that will pay for your tuition and give you a salary at the same time. Oh no, we're not going to talk about that. We're going to keep talking about everything in the clouds, all these partnerships, and exclude the actual meat for people at the admin level. And so just from experiencing that, I was like, okay, whoever is still on staff for this that hasn't already quit, they're definitely old. They are definitely out of touch. They are definitely not HBCU connected. And if they are, they have their own career and agenda in mind. It has nothing to do with students, which I feel like their only real student engagement is the All-Stars or whatever they call themselves now. I'm like, if they're supposed to be ambassadors, then what are the students doing? Because they should be your tentacles on whatever campus they at. Because we had some, didn't know who they were. So I think they're not, they are not ambassing, okay? They're not ambassing, they're assing. And it's, I didn't, I didn't know it was HBCU week until like Wednesday. I didn't know CBC even happened until I saw that they had the concert on that Saturday with D Nice and Nas. And I was like, oh, that's cool, but what did, what did CBC do? Okay, so it's just like, I think it's partly, there's just so much going on right now with COVID and everything and people being upset at Biden. Oh yeah, the government about shutdown in two days. All of that, but also I feel like within government at large, they've been, for the past 10 years, they've been saying, hey, we really want to get a younger workforce. Our current workforce is aging out, they're retiring. And then Trump happened. And so what other people that were still there, they left because they were like, nah, we not, we're not doing part of that. You doing like a legal shit, I'm out. And so they also have a skeleton staff. They're not admitting that, but they do. And so moving forward, I think they need an overhaul. They need to really go back to the drawing board and like, what is our purpose? What is it that we want? Do we want more HBCU graduates in government? Okay, how do we do that? Well, we have these programs and these partnerships and these pipelines. Let's make sure everyone knows about them. And then actually with the younger workforce, maybe you will get the engagement that you seek because you're not still doing old people things. Old people are still on conference calls. We on Zoom, baby. We on social media. Okay, FaceTime, that's what we doing. So it's like, if you're not doing that, because the government is always 20 years behind private sector. So they are still in 2002 right now. And I just think, I don't know, I think with Biden's administration, I don't know where he's going after stuff with Haiti and Afghanistan, it's looking real spooky. So I don't know if they're going to get, I don't know if they're going to get black people. I'll just say that. I don't know if they're going to get people who are being directly affected by stuff. And I think all of those things are directly connected. And let's say they do better next year with the conference and actually market it. I don't know if anyone's actually going to show up or care because it's like, well, what if, you know, if I can't see what you're doing, why do I don't even want to be involved? So they get asked from me. I want to, I want to give Winston some time because he, you got it Winston. Yeah. I am confusion. So because Delaware State, just both is APCU week at Delaware State, but then FAMU was talking about HBC week before and then Clark was saying it was HBCU week. So here's the difference. Okay. So that was, so what was set earlier in September? That was the federal week, right? Okay. That's been the thing that's been happening. What's happening over in Wilmington is actually Christopher's and the city of Wilmington, Mayor Mike Pease, HBCU week foundation organization. And you all might remember from a few years ago, we had actually Christopher and Earl and actually Christopher the Howard woman also went to UDC law school. Was it, what is it? Don't say it. David Clark. Yes. David A. Clark. Yeah. David A. Clark law school in Earl was or is I think a more house alum and they both worked for the Wilmington Mayor, Mayor Mike Pease. And literally he said, this is what I want to do. I know y'all can make it happen. And it's literally grown from 2017 to now, only four years. And they really have turned that out. They're making the difference. And it really is like the perfect balance between a public and private endeavor. They have corporations that are based in Delaware contributing to this in addition to city government saying, this is what I want or what we want for our students. I know, you know, we need that any trade Winston. I don't know for sure. So that's what it is. So like, yes, it is HBC week. So everybody's going to have it on HBC week, basically. Like you just pick a week in the phone. Remember, remember at home, we had an HBC week in 2017 because Ian Kayers did it. And then we had it in 2018. Of course, down guys. Spent a lot of time on the yard at Howard, though. Yes, yes. But then it fell off when he wasn't reelected. Doing my best to bring it back, though. Okay. Off of 2022. But yeah, that's how it goes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of hard to keep up. So that even makes it a thing. I mean, Laurel, you know, fired off enough shots about in general. And I would agree because I also, I also registered for that when it was still, they were still debating if it was going to be in person or not. And so then they sent an email, like, we're not going to do it in person. And then you had to go through, you know, there were actually, there was no process. That was another thing that was slightly confusing. Like, so then it was when it wasn't in person, there was no like, okay, so maybe we want to re-register for what events, how we're going to do said events for the week, those kind of things. It was a little bit confusing or hard to keep up, like I said. So yeah, there's a lot of room for improvement on it. I think there's a lot of room for it to be a lot better and intentional. And, you know, as like I said, was already stated, like, you have to think about those people who are engaged and involved that are not millennials or zelenials or whatever else, you know, that uses, you know, the technology is in, you know, vastly more able to understand and navigate those things. If you're not thinking about those people, then it's almost pointless to be doing these things electronically and still trying to engagement in those ways. It has to be for the least of them and understanding to make it worthwhile. So, you know, from that standpoint, it left much to be desired. I didn't even get on after they said it was virtual. I tried to like do on that Monday. I tried to get on the first session and it was like a whole, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go back to doing what I was doing, because this is like a lot, you know, it's a lot to keep up and do. So, I would give it, you know, a D for developmental, I guess, like a lot of room for improvement on HBCU week and then bring back Detroit HBCU week, I guess, please. Oh, no. Yeah, nah, I couldn't get on. Like, that journey was straight. We're going to pull that together. Yo, and I'm hitting, remember, I was hitting you. I'm texting you like, yo son, I can't get on. Like, what's going on? And you like, no, try this, try this. And I was like, yo, there's money to be made. Like, I'm out of here. And I still don't got everyday tips. Do I not text you just about every day? Do we, do we, do we, do we know who? We're on watch. Like, and I got an attitude. Like, don't be like this. I feel like I'm trying to find out if I made line. Like, this is just, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. That's all I got. Katie, you're on mute. Thank you. Thank you. That was, that was, that's great. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. You gotta get that out. Um, so, like, four things, four things. One, I really don't have nothing to offer because I didn't know what happened. Two, where's Stephen A. Smith? I thought this was his thing. He always, you know, he's the, he's the, he's the Wilmington one. Yes. He has a national platform. Bring him to the national stage then. Like, where's Stephen A. Smith? But we need, like, okay. I'm kidding partially. But to that point three, we talk about our disappointment in the event and largely because of our disappointment and how it was planned. And then when you look at the board real quick, you see that there's three lawyers and two entrepreneurs that are elder statesmen, if you will. Need some more diversity on that board, baby. I continue to think, like, if the organization isn't doing well, is the board giving us what we needed to give? Is the board leading us in the right direction? And in this case, again, probably not, right? If y'all are so disappointed, then you have every right to be because, again, I'm a K-12 teacher, actively trying to get students in the college, you know, everywhere, but HBCUs in particular, of course, as an alum, especially as an alum of Copham State University, which is about 15 minutes from my high school, right? And so for there to be a week dedicated to HBCUs and not a word of it come up in my school, which was just on the two-day show for a Monday night football game, I think is, you know, this is a little disappointing, right? DC only 45 minutes away, like there has to be something that we could have been included in that we just fired. And I don't know how you expect people to participate in an event that's virtual during the day when we all have jobs and stuff, I just, I don't know. I'm not taking off my day job to sit at a computer with you to learn about stuff that I already know. Like you said, it was wanting to be made after a while after like five minutes, like I'm about to get back to work. Yeah, it just doesn't make sense. It's like, like, okay, again, I teach high school. At least give me something to show the kids. They're not going to do that though. You know, give me something to show the kids. Like, yo, they actually don't have high school-based programming like that. Like, and that's, that's been my school. Like, so who are you marketing to? HBCU alum who've already graduated? HBCU students who are already there? Not students who are already there, they're the, not a high value man, but a high value student. When I was a student and I saw whatever glimpses that I saw, I didn't even feel like it was accessible to me because I wasn't 4.0, NSGA, Greek, pale student, and I saw that too. Yeah, so at that point then, they need some restructuring. You need to table it. But you can't do none of that. And that's why I'm waiting to find out who made the line. Okay, so basically what y'all are saying is, is that it reflects the entire DNC's real approach to HBCUs overall. I mean, it was a campaign point. It was something that was peddled as part of the whole reason to get behind Kamala. And they got the votes after it was recounted. They really got the votes. They were on our campuses campaigning and getting people that look like us to actually, you know, register to vote because anything but Trump. And we voted for anything but Trump. And now we are afterthought because we got treated like two cents. But hasn't that always been the status quo? Why you treat me like animal? Why you treat me like animal? This is going straight to YouTube. Good job. This is going straight to YouTube. You want to edit that part out? Edit that part out. You want to edit that part out? Give me a beat. Give me a beat. Yeah, yeah, you like a bleep. Put a bleep in there. You'll sound something. This is not bleepable radio. But it is frustrating though. It's frustrating. It gets frustrating. But we got treated though. We really be out here and I'm lobbying. I've been in these rooms before. At the very least, you ain't got nobody who could argue oh, HPCUs do better than most other institutions as far as creating socially mobile black people that could become future employers for your state and your state. Like nothing along those lines. Nothing about any partnership between the Googles and all these other people with HPCUs to get people into the next stage of STEM. Y'all still talk about the old STEM. We beyond that. That's them the blooms. Like yeah, y'all got to move on. We need no blood. But that's the problem. So Mel, y'all said, you can't even get it out. He's got a haggie son. Case in point though. Case in point. To this point. To this point, right? As far as like just trying to bridge this gap between high school and college and attracting students. Boy state university again. I don't know how to keep coming up. But they have a black male teachers program where they actively trying to recruit black men to get an education since we are the smallest population. How does that not come up? Yo, there's been a lot of institutions that have been doing that for the last 30 minutes away. Lincoln's been doing it over what like? I think he had one. Huston Tilston too. And they have a program too. This is the same problem it's always had. How many I say this every goddamn episode? Thank you. We are. HPCUs individually and collectively are all our individual gold mines. And there are some diamonds and rubies and emeralds in there that are not even at the bottom of the pile. They're right there at the top. But we are not standing outside of our various gold mines saying, hey over here we got mad rubies. We got, you know what I'm saying? It's Margella in here, all right? We have this. And so like I've talked to people that they didn't even know they had certain programs and they went to the damn school. I don't even go there. Like how do you have government-funded nuclear engineering program? And nobody knows about it. And it's in South Carolina. Something like that. Some line. I drop this every time because it's like, okay, if they have that, I can just say Tuskegee because you know Tuskegee, good for it. Why does people not know that? And you have it. Bowie State, again. They just signed a partnership with, I want to say it's the Navy. They just, it's like a pipeline to do with like naval aeronautics something. And they just signed, they just signed a memorandum of understanding like last month. That was on Maryland public access television. So it's like the same, again, which is nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. But it's like, again, that's local. I live here. I can see that. But if I don't know, just have ROTC programs. Like what? And it's like, it's like the sad part is the schools themselves are, they suck. I'm, if you hear me, you suck at marketing because if I go on your website and all of stuff like that is not at the first two thirds of your website, you get an F, you fail. And then on the government side, how are you, how are you in the government? Whatever branch of the government it is, you have government funded programs, fellowships that are 20 plus years old and you're not marketing. You're not connecting to people who are alumni of these programs that are also went to enter HBCU here and making that connection. And why aren't they speaking at HBCU week? But you know what? To be fair, to be fair, all HBCUs have sucky web designs. Most higher education does. Not design content. It can look ugly, but if I can get all the information in the first five minutes. You got to pick a struggle. Right. But to Laurel's point, because I've had a conversation, a few conversations with career and professional development area people. And some of the struggle is not just tied to what you both are saying, but it's tied to the fact that our students are first generation, mostly, right? And so they think just getting here A, I'm gonna get it. Like I'm here cool. Now that's it, but it's actually not it. And you don't know that it's not it. So they have to get students to that point of even being hungry to even show up to apply. Do y'all know what it's like to be some place at an HBCU that is not your HBCU and see how students are not hungry? But they don't even know to be hungry. So I would say that's a problem. That's a matter of culture. That's how it's culture though. Like Howard Howard is like these hustlers and that's fine. But most people ain't hungry. People like we literally grew up during the generation and the generation after us as as fallen to them, where it's like, oh, I'll get a degree. I'm good. And we ain't living in that society no more, right? Howard breeds that. There's some LHBCUs that breed like that. And that's cool. But what I'm but the other side to it too is that you can't necessarily blame the students, especially if your career services office is still trying to teach somebody how to put together a resume and not telling somebody how to go out and actually find opportunities. You're still trying to tell somebody how to actually dress the part, speak the part, but child ain't really coaching anybody from a career perspective, because that's a whole that's a whole other issue in itself. Forget like my entire job right now is to talk to students who have no idea what they want to do and help give them a plan. Right, you need those people. But what's it can tell you, as he just alluded to on the child a little bit, there were how many, how many students got picked up from Ogles in the making? How many Winston? From Menai Gulf or even from what? Menai Gulf. We had seven. From various HBCUs, right? Yeah, different HBCUs. Like, we all know Detroit House was haunted, right? You can't beat Detroit. We know that. But like... It's not living in Detroit. There's other places too. There's Chicago, New York. There's places where kids, they have some of those innate abilities and you put them in a right environment. I'm not... I know, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Thank you, Winston. Thank you. I'm just saying. I'm just talking now. But like, for real, like, it's not just... It's not just that it has... It's like a... It's a mix of the culture. It's a mix of where they come from. It does take people like Eric doing that. And I don't think we have like... I don't think we have the luxury of having people and having the people power to do that. I know what you're saying. They're coddled. That's so... Yes. In part, that's the problem. Me and Laura were just talking about this not like earlier today. They're coddled. And the issue then becomes how do you prepare someone that's coddled when they are... They feel entitled. Yeah. When I got to school, I'm a little, you know, a little bit older than y'all. When I got to school, it was a hustle. Like, I still... My mother just took the letter down from when I got accepted from the refrigerator. Like that... There was a hustle there. Like, there was hunger there. There was like, I don't know if I'm going to make it. So let me talk to this one. Let me... The way I even got accepted to Hampton was on academic probation. And when I got there, my mother was like, you better go find that man that said, you could get in. And that's your uncle. There isn't that anymore. Right. And when anything goes wrong... It breaks. Oh, my God. How am I going to go into the... Look, me, like I said, me and Laura were talking about this. How am I going to go into the workforce? Not going to make it. I'm like, baby, this ain't a Marriott. I was like... Honey... I'm not in... I'm not in hospital every day. I was like, but first rule was that my hours are from nine to five. If you see me before or after nine to five, I am a hologram. I look like I'm here, but I'm not really here. The second rule is that this is not a Marriott. I don't work for Hilton. Okay. I don't work for the wrist Carlton. This is not a concierge desk. So I can point you to... If you... If someone put a charge in your account, you need to talk to financial aid, babe. And if the first person you could talk to doesn't help you, then you find somebody else. And you attack the block. Take their number, take their title, and keep moving. But y'all, I feel like with them, they meet the slightest bit of resistance. And then it's the world over. New button. Let me... Let me blast y'all on Twitter and call Channel 4 News. And I'm gonna be... And it's like that... Listen, and that was pre-pandemic. Right. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. So you already know they're about to wow out. When it's full... When it's full force, heads is definitely gonna wow out. What was me? Pass out in the middle of the rotunda. Like, bam. And if they don't... Tighten up. It's gonna definitely y'all cry. And they month my stars. No, it ain't gonna be our fault. Y'all. Yeah, just quit. Do y'all think we sound like how boomers sound to us? No. No. No. No. We care. We actually care about the ounces. I don't think we care about the ounces. That's why it's frustrating because... That's why it's frustrating. Because we wouldn't even say anything. If we just let them dive and go where they go, if we didn't... No, I'm just asking. I'm just... If we were boomers, it would be like... Yeah, me too, right? Because we're stuck in the middle. Like, we understand, like, you still gotta do some level of hard work. Even if you fall, you still gotta... You gotta work back to equilibrium. You just ain't gonna get all the way to where you want to go, just because you decided to put some hustling after the fact. But we also understand I'm not working for nobody that ain't got a good work culture and good benefits and makes me feel like I actually want to show up here. Like, we ain't doing that either. We're not gonna stay with a company for 30 years if you ain't paying me. I will go somewhere else the next day that they hire me and do all that too. And we see all that because we done built through that. And we looking back and trying, like, do y'all not understand that this is the beginning of y'all grind? Y'all ain't even in it for real. Like, how is this a real place? It's a footprint of your late teenager in early 20 years. Imagination, right? You know, and to that point though, I think for us, we had to earn practically all the information that we have. I really feel it. I feel like we had to earn every bit of it. And for them, I'm like, look, I'll give you the easy part. Just walk the 10 miles. Walk the last 10. Just walk the last 10. You're not good at following principles. We would run full throttle in a trap, okay? We follow the calisthenics. Yeah. And I told them that. I teach 10 crack commandments, leadership style. And we talk about come-ups and consequences. And to every action, it's either a come-up or a consequence or both. And they don't understand. Like, they only want come-ups. Nah, kid. Like, there's... That's not real. Right. There's consequences of certain things. Well, I don't want to face that. Well, then you don't want to live here on this earth. You don't want to make them move. Right. Like, literally one of my... Wait. I got to say this quote. The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the effort must result in making a person think and do for themselves just as the Jews have done in spite of universal persecution. Like, I have to make you think because I'm not going to be able to think for you, your mother, your father, whoever raised you is not going to be here to think for you. Like, I have students that come to me and ask me, what should they do? What do you want to do? Right. But your wife can't tell me. I can't tell you because I know what I'm going to do. Right. Because I'm not you. And so it's like... And then do you have the drive to do what you think you want to do? Like, can you eat that? If it don't go your way, can you take 12 years to get to where you want to go? Come on, somebody. Can you take the L? Because they don't want to take L. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but get the 12 years. And you already took the first L. No! Yeah. Are you going to let your L turn to a loss or a lesson? God, no. Come on, kid. Are we those old people in El Ferro, though? Hey, to tell me something. Are we those old people? No. No, we're not. We're not. We're not. Look, I'm just going to sit here. I ain't old people, so... It's just what they lack is experience and that's not their fault but I feel like, they're hesitant to experience. Experience. But watch this. But watch this. You know, I did 5101s over the past like a month and a half. I said, yo, what are you into outside of school? Nothing. No. KD, KD, you see the reasoning for all the stuff that we're talking about right now, though. These children were left behind in the mud, though. Like... Yeah. Wait, we need to... We need Bushback? No child left behind? What's going on? No, so listen. It didn't go anywhere for the little kid. So one of the biggest things no child left behind is that there is no critical thinking in school no more. If I put answers to the test, then I'm going to pass to the next place. But guess what? They're taking that same approach to life. They figure, oh, I got the answers. I just got to know the answers. We don't work that way. Sure don't. Life is an abstract, okay? But that's the problem. So literally speaking, education is reflecting the issues that we have in life right now. I had a perfect... If these kids have to critically think to do anything in high school, they're not coming to college with the same mindset. They ain't got to think no more. No. Everything is right here. And even if it's right there, they ain't even looking at it. They won't even Google. And they fold your answers. No, that's fact. That's fact. Because I'd be sitting there. And they'd be like, I don't know. And I'm like, you have a smartphone in your hand, kid. Like, use that joint. Why do you do this much a month? Why do you muffle pain this much a month? So you don't have to use the internet that's actual fingertips on the regular? Look, we have the most access to information than anyone else in the history of time. And yet, which is why I said, isn't it wonderful that COVID is not a zombie virus? Because what would they do if this was the walking dead? Because you can't help it. You can't. You got to have hustle spirit in the walking dead. Where does the Bible scale? Hustle spirit. We can try to barricade ourselves in. You know what? I'm serious, I'm serious. But nobody's ever heard of it. Because COVID-19 was zombie 19. And it was a total societal breakdown. And we out here, people fighting over toilet paper and milk and Kool-Aid. What would these children do? And alcohol? The Hennessy is lit. No, I was talking about the white stuff. We're running, we're running. Well, it's Hennessy, we can do better. Do we have to? In the last episode. Actually, we can just land this plane right now. We can talk about the next segment later. Do we clap because we landed? You so much for listening to HBCU Digest. Digest After Dark on Serious XM Radio. Psych, this is a lost episode. Only on YouTube. Cat-Tess. Yeah, if you don't cut this up. If you just don't edit the line, it's like three words. They said that word. They said that word. Just three words. Just edit. Just hit the bleep button. Please, three words. Thank you so much. Please, man. Thank you.