 Welcome back to another episode of HBCU Digest, Digest After Dark on Serious XM Radio, Channel 142 HBCU, The Pride of Howard University Radio. I am your host is Tiffany, and clearly I am forever permanently on the roll, and Jared is not here with us tonight. Today, tonight we have Orisa Morganite, Midnight Winston, getting them into school, just changed to the Dell State Pipeline, I'm trying to catch up here. And Laurel the Aggie, we may or may not hear from KD and Eric, we will see how that goes, but tonight we are, with the exception of one topic, our very Florida heavy tonight. I didn't design it like that, but that's how it's going to play out. So first up is Nicole Hanna-Jones in particular. It was announced a few days ago that she and my fellow Howard alum, Tanya Hesse Coates would be on faculty at Howard in this coming academic year. If you will recall, if you were or are a long time, listener, you will know that this past May, we talked about Nicole Hanna-Jones and other black scholars who have been denied tenure at their traditionally white institutions and systems. And here we see some moves were made. And the only thing that I can think of is, A, that while we were chatting, it would seem that President Frederick was negotiating to make things happen. Second thing I would also say as I have been cackling since I read the announcement is something that Big Sean said in Friday Night Cipher. Shit be impossible until it happens, right? So that's all I got. Laurel, it's on you for this. Please give us a prophetic word, a response, anything else you have to say. I mean, this happening was the prophetic word. Was it not? Did I not say that this was what it was? Did I not say, was I lying? I wasn't. Yeah, I definitely scooped this. My sources will remain unnamed, but people be knowing. I think it's not so much as her, like, of course she wasn't gonna stay at UNC. She would be a fool if she did, because how do you let people play in your face publicly? And then they say, oh, just kidding, nevermind. Here you go. And then you take it like, she was never gonna do that. She's been through the tray too long in these journalism streets to do that. But like I said, last time, her, I remember her saying Howard came to her. They were the only HBCU that said, hey there, you and all your wonderful glorious funding. We have a space for you. Would you like to have a seat? And she said yes. And what did I say last time? That other scholars that are black, we will even expand it to the rest of the people of color. I would take it further and say, don't wait to be asked. Show up and say, how can I help you? Oh, I see you have this, but it could be better. Here are my resources and my grant funding and old white people money. That is in the millions. What do you need? Winston, what you got? You know, first thing is welcome home. Welcome home to the folks wherever you needed to have your awakening, whatever required you to recognize the opportunity, welcome home. You know, and opportunity is there. I think there's a lot of opportunity, you know, from a sector wide perspective for folks to have the spotlight shined upon, the value in our institutions and what they can bring and to Laurel's point, what some of those educated minds and resources can bring to the sector as well. You know, I hope that the opportunity, excuse me, allows the attention that it deserves. Some people require the fancy names and the certain influencers to be a part of the sector in order to recognize them, but that doesn't mean you won't catch some people who will find deep value and who maybe do understand purpose in this space, what it means to be called to the space, to Dr. Carr's point. And I hope it just is an opportunity that is taken by others who understand it and that it doesn't require you to, and Laurel, to give play to your face in order for you to understand the value there. You know, hopefully it allows some other folks to reevaluate their careers, really take a, let's take a unbiased look at the sector and what opportunities are there for us collectively as a culture to be able to use those minds and those resources in the HBCU space because there is a lot of value there. We know it's rich and valuable. Solid ores. So I just want to, I think I feel a lot of commentary with people saying, you know, oh, she went to Howard and there's a certain bias towards Howard. Due to its location and its rent, but she's paying her own salary. So she really could have went anywhere she wanted to when she chose Howard. So I know she did like Howard reached out Howard offered, but she's paying her own way. She's actually bringing more resources than Howard can actually give. So I thought it was cool to see that because she could have done something different. I thought it was cool that she came with Ty and I thought that in general, it brings a lot of energy to the sector. I hope that in general, her time there is good because it is a tenured role she can stay for as long as she would like to. And I'm assuming she'll be in and out over the next, you know, 20, 30 years, probably doing assignments with New York Times Magazine, doing stuff at Howard, maybe do some film stuff. It's like Ty needs does coming back. And I think it's cool to see that. More to Laurel's point. Can y'all hear that thunder? We're not even supposed to be doing this right now, but we gonna contain more to Laurel's point. It is the calling, but the conflicted part of me also says that the calling can't be enough. The calling can't be enough. And we're also, you know, working to get to that point where we can get out of a survival mode, right? We need to get to the point where all of us or the majority of us are thriving on our individual campuses and collectively. So that's something to, I think, think about. KD, you can round it out. Sure, I'll A on the side of positivity and just say that, you know, Howard is a powerhouse in the HBCU community for a ton of reasons. And we understand that. So we understand that they'll always be able to attract the celebrity. And I'm thankful that the celebrity decided to come home and be with people that's going to love her. And she brought her money with her, which is dope as well, right? So she's not gonna put any stress on a university, build the university's profile and then prayfully build some other black, strong, young journalists underneath her to follow her footsteps and do some similar work and, you know, bring more light to the sector. But just because Howard is the powerhouse and they can attract the celebrity doesn't mean that, you know, the Fort Valleys, the fists, I don't know, the Johnson C. Smiths, the Coppins State University, the smaller HBCUs without the strong, strong, strong alumni can't, you know, take their best and build in their universities. You don't need a celebrity to do something new, do something fresh and not even new or fresh, just to build a program in a way that attracts people. You just need to take your best alumni and do something similar, right? You don't need a celebrity to do this. You just need to do it with what you got. I assure you that there's successful black philanthropy or philosopher, successful black journalist, successful black, whatever coming out of your school that you just need to highlight, bring them home, not Roller Martin and Fist, that you just need to highlight, bring them home. That's funny. That's funny that it should be. I hate y'all, stupid chat. I'm gonna highlight them, bring them home and build around them, you know. You know, help build their profile in the midst of you building that profile, help build your school's profile and move like that. There's nothing wrong with that, right? But again, I'm just happy she came home and didn't hit them with the double M and brought home one of that on two. That's big ups to Howard, y'all. Y'all just keep making the right moves at the right time. So yeah, congratulations, y'all. Again, for the continued wins. I have to say, wait, are you done, KD? I'm done. Okay. I have to say that an HBCU president texted me and he was like, this is a win for Howard. I said, nah, this is a win for everybody. Everybody is on, right? And I say that because the top programs or the schools that Howard, the professional and the graduate school all have, or the majority of them have summer programs that are specifically for HBCU students, not just Howard students, but HBCU students. So I would expect to see something come of Nicole Hanna-Jones and Tanya Heesey-Coates being added to that line of summer programming for other HBCU students. That's something that I do really expect to see. But moving on to the first Florida topic, I suppose we'll let Ores have this first. So if you have been following the saga for a while, you will know that Bethan Cookman University a few years ago struck this residential residence hall deal. And it didn't make sense to a lot of different people. It didn't make sense to a lot of different people. It was just like, who cleared this? Nobody would take the responsibility for, hey, I cleared this. I mean, obviously we know who did, but it just did not, it didn't sit well with a lot of different people. There have been since this time, various stories about mismanagement, deals being brokered, people getting kickbacks, all these different things. But a few days ago, there was an announcement made that essentially the debt has been relieved through the federal government. And now the question is being asked, is Bethan Cookman University in the clear? Is it safe? Things like this, for the amount of money, was like $306 million that's being given, relieved, whatever the case is. And one of the things from the article talked about how for a debt that large, a sum of money that must be paid, those things start to affect your accreditation. And so the idea is that with this debt being relieved, that they're safe from getting their accreditation snatched by SAC COC. And so, or as somebody, I think you obviously were a rattler for a year, I would assume you have much to say, I know you also have in, oh, excuse me, two years. I know, I think you also have an interest in real estate. So you got this first, you're up. Thank you, Tiffany. So what I would say first is they're not the hot seat. They're AD, just resigned. They're president just resigned. So it's kind of difficult to be excited about things when you have a major people in the administration who are resigning after the AD was there, I think for 17 years. They did a very good job. They have great athletic, wonderful uniforms. But with the president leaving after all the controversy, there's still some board issues with the resolution of the debt, that's good. But one thing to realize is that the original deal was around $100, $150 million. And it had already played so much interest that it was worth over 300 million debt in five or six years. It just shows you how bad the deal, they signed. I hope that they can transform from an administration standpoint, and get the board together. But it's still a rickety shift, like they flood a hole. But it's not, it's not, not fixed. It's still the president. It's still the athletic director. The president took people with him to the positions that are open. Enrollment is not great. And unfortunately, the state was giving him a lot of money. It's right now in a tax deficit because they need hospitality tax. So the extra money they had for private schools are not given out this year to Bethune, to Stetson, to some other private schools in the state of Florida. So I'm not overly optimistic about Bethune but my college, and I hope that they can continue to get their stuff together. But this debt is nice to get off, but you need a president. You need a president. I do have like four rooms in the last five years. They've had different board chairs and board members. It's a mess. And they have all these new costs coming to the swag. So I don't know. I don't know. And I just saved the cook of college. That was on purpose. Yes, we caught that. So now I'm wondering, how do we decide? Nah, I say that. Okay, where did orders go? All right. Let's go with Eric. How do we decide what exactly? No, no, no, I wait for that question. At some point, Bethune Cookman is private. So it's a whole lot of people you've got to ask who's responsible here for it, even though we know what we also don't know. Can't help but to ask, like, as with things I've said in previous episodes of That Is After Dark, who's holding the board accountable? So this is all over the board. One way or the next. And it, so that gets handled. Well, but they in the swag though. So I guess I'll go to them. We'll see. One of the questions in the article was along the lines of, so they couldn't do this with any of the presidents before? Like, was this not on the table as a solution with none of the previous presidents? This was not on the table? And I just, I find that hard to believe when I think about that one, I'm seeing the graduation in my head where Betsy DeVos was down there talking. Was this not on the table? Cause this was, this was a thing then. Who knows? Katie? I mean, I can't speak to what happened during that admin. I immediately rejected everything that they did, not everything, but almost everything that they did, right? So I'm not even gonna put that into play. But what I will say is when, and this is a cause for concern for me, when you see a large sum of money being given to an institution and incredibly large sum of money being given to an institution, when you see a lot of leadership turn over, it begs the question. Who's interested in the school? Why are they interested? And what is your plan to keep them from acquiring the school? That's especially, and we said we in Florida, right? They don't want them HBCUs down there, especially in Daytona around a certain demographic. So yeah, I would be concerned if I'm alumni that you may lose this institution to the closest for-profit PWI, not for-profit, but the closest state institution that's a PWI or MSR, whatever, have you want to slice it in the area? That's the only way I can see it because when you talk about quarter billy plus, a quarter billy plus to save a school, did you even solve the problem from when you took the first 108 million? Is that problem still in existence? And then you had the nerve to take more money? Like, how do you triple that number? And under four years, how do you triple that number? You know, I think that school is gonna get snatched. We may lose that HBCU because of foolishness, unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I've been wrong before, but I can't see it any other way right now because there's just too much money for a state or federal government to just let that school just sit there and be cool. You know what I mean? That's all I got. I don't want to see that. I literally don't want to see that. Like, that would make me want to fight. And I know we do not, oh no, Jared ain't here. We don't talk about, or Jared does not talk about Morris Brown College. But if we had, and this sounds very terrible, but if we had to pick a school, pick between the two. Oh heck no, we're not doing that. I don't want to know. I mean, I was gonna bring them up, but only to say that if Morris Brown can have 29 lives, why not, can Bethune Cookman? Oh and to correct, or as they actually did just get a new AD as of this week. But to that point though, Georgia has a much stronger school, you know, college or high education institution. I believe. Yellow more closer. That's the big one. Florida and Georgia are fighting for our place. Florida and Georgia were supposed to be separated from the United States and be drifting in the Gulf right now. But they're not. So while they're still connected, we have to deal with everything. I'll save Atlanta. I'll save Atlanta for a second. No, no, they gotta go to Atlanta. Atlanta can go to it. They gotta go. Wow, y'all so funny. Atlanta, Atlanta can be Atlantis. Okay, that's the thought field. But for while they're still connected. I didn't even know what it is. I'm saying there will be when it's in the US. And it drifts out to the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps the Bermuda Triangle. Who knows, you know what I'm saying? Other worlds. But I feel like Bethune Cookman, I don't know. I don't think anyone should, you know, burn whatever brain cells they have to worry about how they finagled this deal. I do agree with KD that there is something else afoot because there's always something afoot. Especially with a private institution. There's a few foots afoot. But I feel like in the meantime, they're stabilizing. So it's kind of hard to say like, okay, is this gonna, are they really gonna improve from this? Or is this just the setup before another pitfall? We don't know. I wish all schools were required to make their books public. I wish all nonprofits were required to do that. And that's unfair and that's problematic for them. Even when they are public, people still don't look at it, Eric. This is true, but if it was there, there are the jerks of the world. There are other people of the world who work in higher education or like, what the heck is going on here? Because somebody is, it is, you're right. I ain't going to lie to you. I was at ANC while people were complaining about the budget. I even told people, I was like, you can literally, and I did it, full disclosure. I looked up every last one of my professor's salary, but does the average, I know the average student doesn't know that because it's easier to complain about the financial aid office, which valid, but no one's gonna really sit there and look at university budget, know what that means. See, they'll just see the numbers and like, why is all my tuition going to athletics, which it doesn't, but whatever. But I think, I don't know, it's hard to tell, but also it's Florida. Florida is gonna be, six months from now, Florida might be on fire, but this might not even matter. The question ultimately is, which Florida man is this? It's like, you know, the Johnny Appleseed in the South, right? Like, it's like, what Edmont is it for BCU? But like I asked y'all, I said it in the chat. If you were famed, you, how much would you pay for BCU just to be petty? Like, if you were taken over, they can't. I wouldn't. They ain't got that money. If I'm famed, you, I wouldn't reach that. Hold up, y'all are out of order. Y'all are out of order, y'all are out of order. There's already a question on the floor that none of y'all have answered. What is the question? If we had to choose. Oh, nobody's answering that question. Oh, that is, that's not, that's not it. Wait, how is that? You don't even know the answer. You know, I think more of it. It's easy, which one still, which one actually has had accreditation for the last year? Oh, between, between, I don't even want to say their name. It's like saying Betelgeuse. Right. I love them. But the organization of buildings that may or may not be a school, would I pick them? No, I would pick them the same way I would pick ICDC college. Another institution that also no longer exists. So there you go. That's my answer. It's worth saving. So you, so you said, you're saying BCU is where I am. Fanny's right out there. Fanny's right out there. So what you're saying, Laurel, is that you want to add BCU doing commercials courtesy of Little Romeo to advertise people to the church? No, what I'm saying is if Little Romeo and Master Key could not save a for-profit college from closing, none of the grifting and scamming and dream selling is going to save Morris Brown just like it will not save Bethune Cookman. God rest, Mary McLeod, Bethune Saul. That is my she-ro. She's turning in her grave right now. I'm so sorry, sis, so sorry. I'm just saying it's a Florida man. She's been turning in about 15 years now. All I'm saying is the Florida man waiting to take Bethune Cookman and turn it into Florida State University. It'll be UCF first, UCF closing. All right, I'll take that. UCF Daytona. Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it. This is going to take us into our third. And actually, there's a quote from this article that applies to Cookman. It applies to Morris Brown. And it applies to Florida Memorial University. Not Calgary. And it's like, damn. Typically, I don't like to agree with or it just bothers me that there could be some people who are not of the community who write about us. And it's just so accurate. It's like, damn, I don't want to agree with. He's speaking the truth. So let me back up. Florida Memorial University is in trouble. And in the last, this is from a few days ago, essentially, of day to yesterday. This article is first sentences, the time it's come for an intervention. So my god. Yeah. And then it outlines all the problems that Florida Memorial is facing currently. The first of it is that the school has recently been placed on accreditation probation. And I mean, I know we've talked about the ins and outs of how we understand and how others of our community understand accreditation and how serious it is to be on probation, to have your accreditation revoked, to not have it, but still be open. We know what that looks like. That's not, there's no mystery there. You know what that looks like. We all know what that looks like. And so earlier, you heard me cut myself off. But I was going to say, at what point do we decide that we're not, what HBCUs we're not going to save? What HBCUs that if you, why are we getting so close to the flame? Why are we sticking our hand in the oven like the stove ain't hot, like fire don't burn? Like fat meat is not greasy. Why do we have to get to this point? Is it adrenaline? Is it the rush? Does it make you feel alive? Like, why do we do this? Why do we allow it to happen? Why do we spend time? And this is a point from the article that definitely applies to Morris Brown. I don't think it applies so much to Cookman, but obviously it also applies to Ford Memorial and it says, a slick new recruitment video on the home page of FMUNIV.edu is high on spirit and low on substance. Appealing to students interested in sports fraternities and sororities and the school's proximity to South Beach. And I said, but earlier in the article I talked about how it's on accreditation probation. And one of the ways that it has to prove itself as a viable institution is to have higher student enrollment. Is this the formula to get higher student enrollment? Can't we see how that's worked out at Morris Brown College? Doing all those things? Where are the numbers? Didn't we say we weren't fitting to mention them no more? Hey, no we didn't. Three times. So I would ask of all of you, what do we do? Well, what do we do? Should this be the last time we have to address an institution like this? At some point we have to say, I can't continue to give my energy to an institution that is repeatedly so close to being about of here. Like, and I mean, I don't like that I even think that, but I think it. But I don't like that I think it. I don't. All right, so at the beginning of the pandemic, we were plus or minus on how many HBCUs we thought we would lose in general for a ton of reasons. Most of which was because instead of focusing on, like we say, student enrollment, academic programming, maybe reshuffling your finances, and doing all types of logistical reorganization such that you could have a thriving institution coming out of this, they were focused on branding for the most part across the sector. Everybody just chose branding. And then because of the influx of money we got due to the protests mostly, we thought, hey, this is a sustainable formula. And we'll keep getting this money because we'll keep seeing HBCUs highlighted in this space, right? That's one side of it. And then the other side of it is clearly Florida is sick of the black colleges, and they're going to take out as many of them as they can while Gavin Newsom has some time in office. Because this time is probably limited at this point, because they're sick of him as well. He's going to scorch earth this thing as for as long as he has that seat. So you got those two things at play. One, we as a sector didn't necessarily do right by the sector from a logistical standpoint. We didn't buffer any or very few of us did anything to buffer our programming in a way that would suggest more students want to come, and that we're building programs that will be usable in the future, right? I didn't see a lot of colleges talk about STEM and all of the STEM related stuff. We didn't see a lot of colleges talk about any of the social, at least not from a major, how do you want to frame it in a way that is academic perspective? You didn't see a lot of colleges talking about that, or advertising that aspect of their school. And I think you're seeing the fallout of it, the early signs of it. Because enrollment was down in general across the country. Colleges were not enrolling as many students, largely because we all broke. But you know, college enrollment was down. So if it's down to PWIs, it's even worse at HBCUs, right? And so we just not dealing with that in a very real way. And so when you say, then you bring up all of the schools or these schools that continue to have accreditation issues, this is probably part of the problem. This is probably part of the problem. You're not bringing in a great student, and on top of that, you're not cultivating that student that you do have to be successful. And then you wonder why your GPA slips from 2.7 to 2.5 to 1.9. And why nobody wants to continue to fund a university that isn't graduating students. I mean, I think that we shouldn't be struggling to connect those dots, in my opinion. The point in this article that applies to Cookbin, to Morris Brown, and obviously the Florida Memorial, is more transparency is needed, not more secrecy. For FNU to survive and thrive, a major house cleaning is in order. Yeah. And I said, you're right. Scorch it and start again. And then it ends with when your house is on fire and the flames are shooting through the roof. You can't put it out. You can't put out the blades with a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. I said, yeah. Write about it. Laurel. I think they're going to probably have to do not in the same way, but do the same thing that Bennett did. Obviously, you can't only, and FNU is not the only school that does this. It's just it ends up in the news because we're black. But a lot of schools in higher ed have trying to be a Marriott and trying to, oh, look at all our amenities. And we have a campus concierge. And all of the stuff, which some are extra, some actually is part of student affairs. It colors your college experience. You're not going to get a degree in chilling. You're going to get a degree in whatever majors are available. And so I think FNU has to redirect. I think they need to look in their own backyard. They might have to put more effort toward reaching pre-college population, non-traditional students, maybe somehow by the grace of God boost up their digital infrastructure to offer more online programs. Because if they go toward access and they actually get good at it, they'll be better than their peers that have a lot more money, but only think about the traditional age student, because the largest population of students growing beyond Hispanic students overall is non-traditional students or the adult learner. And so they're no, they're not a community college, but I feel like if they approach it that way, one, they'll save themselves money. Two, you can still have some of those like traditional four-year college features, but you don't have to necessarily have like the CVS receipt of features. You can do what you do best. They have an aviation program. How many schools have aviation programs? Like, so it's like, you have some diamonds that are a little bit tarnished, they just need some polish. You're chasing stuff that you don't, what's that Jennifer Hudson meme? Insufficient funds, you ain't got no money. You don't have any money and you're about to lose your accreditation. So you need to look in your pocket, move the line out the way. Oh, I got one last good quarter. When we shine the shit out of that joint, pop it in. I know that's easier said than done. I just think, obviously beyond mismanagement, again, it's gonna take someone else who wants to bake the bread and is willing to put in the elbow grease and say, okay, let's start small, let's work with what we have. Loyal hit it on the head. They need to contact their alumni. Like their alumni, and that goes back to the HBCUs and having a bad history, except for school here recently. This is a small school. They don't have many people to call in half and half them probably on social security. This income. Oh, that's not even right though. Listen, I had a coworker that was a little more, it would surprise me too. And he was younger than me, but it happened recently. But that's not the point. The point is, you have to lean into the network you have immediate access to. First, you ain't going, Kodak Black is not walking through that door. Trina is not walking through that door. Like they're not coming through to help. And honestly, and maybe it's me, the one thing that I hate worst in a politician pandering to a particular group of people in order to get their support are HBCUs pandering to the culture by highlighting aspects of what they believe makes them an HBCU that we see PWYs consistently copy and their students saying, oh, we're like an HBCU also. Thanks for the memorial for going ahead and supporting that stereotype when our schools are a lot more. But that's not even the point right now. Yeah. Winston hit me. So here's the thing, man. For starters, I'm not overly enthused by this article. And you touched on it from jump. Well, sometimes when folks are writing from it outside of the sector, it's a little bit different. The taste is a little bit different. What I would say is, you know, I think you gotta keep everything in context. What's already been mentioned, you know, the part that my mentees have been gone to Florida Memorial find out is it ain't right around the corner from South Beach, despite what you might understand. And we do know that there's to close points, some money issues that do exist for flow mode. But the other under arching obvious thing that's not been said yet or mentioned is, we're in a panini. So despite what our cousins travel plans may look like, we're still in a pandemic. So this new president that they've had who's been there for about almost three years now is still navigating his transition in the midst of a Panera bread and trying to figure out what makes sense in order to get students to his institution. I think the brother deserves some grace in that space and the time to build. What's my, you know, final Clark artist who was there before him, who did a solid job. It wasn't a barren situation that he inherited. When he got there, I think he deserves the time to figure out what's going on there. And then shout out to my Detroit brother, Jason Horne who just took over, that athletic director there, you know, trying to get some things together in that space as well. I think in general, a larger issue that we have which kind of was just mentioned about our recruitment to our institutions kind of belittling to Eric's point of, you know, like the only thing we got is the turn up and homecoming and that there's so much more to what we have to offer. So I think that there's still time to course correct the situation of flumma. I don't think it's dire. We also know that we talked about before, accreditation is a process. So they're on probation. It doesn't mean that they will get their accreditation. Say we know it's an issue when you talk about trying to recruit students there. I know far too often, trying to have those conversations with parents when that's on the table, but it does not mean that they will lose accreditation necessarily, especially if, how well the president navigates the transition of this pandemic and figuring things out, what have you. So there's other institutions like Loyola and New Orleans. They were in a similar situation to this, having money problems on, you know, accreditation probation and they were able to turn it around in a similar comparison. Could you talk about New Orleans compared to, you know, 45 minutes from South Beach. So I think there's opportunity here. I don't think it's dire straight. I don't think it's like, oh my God, they're comparing it to an institution that got signed a contract with a hotel recently or whatever the heck they did. You know, I don't know that it's, we've gone that far to be, to say it's down the tubes. It's definitely cause for concern and conversation, but I don't think it's out of the window to say that it can be course corrected and there's still opportunity to do so. You know, and like I said, I got one student who's still there who should be graduating a year or two. So I'm definitely leaning on hope that it's able to course correct given time and leadership doing the things that they need to do that what's been mentioned before, things that can be done in order to course correct and change things. But I don't think it's as dire as the article articulated. Definitely cause for concern. Definitely things need to be changed, but I think the article was kind of a little bit of the perspective of somebody who's outside of the sector, you know, reporting live. So. Before we get to our last topic, I do need to say that there is a praise report out of Florida now called Everwater's University. They have worked hard to get to that point. I wish there were some phone calls for kids I'm trying to get down there, but other than that, yeah, awesome. Dang, we'll handle that. We'll handle that. We will handle that. They really, really have worked hard to get to this point. Actually I'm working on an article that I just need to go ahead and finish. But definitely Everwater's College does not, it's no more. It's Everwater's University. They have an accredited master's fully online, 100% online. Master's of Business Administration program. And it's one year. They're a university now. I am very proud of Everwater's University. That's all I can say. The rest of it will be in the article. Two or more, Winston, please. Two or more, I guess, somber type of topic. Two weeks ago, President Frederick Comfrey's died. And this I remember only because it came late in the night. I was like, ooh, yikes. And so like what followed in the days after where people expressing how much he meant to them? So HBCU president expressing how much of a mentor he was and a great leader that he was. As somebody who was not yet born would know, don't know to see people expressing what he meant to them in their formation of who they are as higher education, HBCU leaders, I was just like, hmm, wow. That's an impactful life. And typically I am, and this is part cynicism, but typically when I see a lot of people coming together to talk about one person, I'm always like, hmm. Is it all that glittery? Like I just keep that in mind because you never know, right? But this, I didn't catch that at all from him in reading about what he meant to other, actually current HBCU president, Dr. Glover comes to my first. So I would ask each of you what you feel or what you think I'm going to start with Ores because at one point President Comfrey's was a rattler so you got it. He went to families, he was always a rattler. He was a student and president. So gotta give it some, he was a really great man. I met him a couple of times. He used to, he lived in Orlando after he retired from fam, but he used to come up quite a bit. I thought that, you know, I thought he got the right and rightful tribute for his work and efforts. I think we're talking a lot about his work. He did a Tennessee State a lot now. They're pushing their land grant funding because they cut it off. See all around him, he was president. They're pushing for their land grant in Tennessee back then. I think also he's a great example of, we don't want to recycle presidents, but he was our cycle president and he was great at Tennessee State, but he was even greater back at fam. The other thing we want to remember is unfortunately he's in the fam game. There's some repercarious circumstances with the trying to go to the FDS and the issues with Billy Joe. And it's unfortunate that the state of Florida had to Florida. I think he probably should have been at fam probably another five years. And if they hadn't gotten in the way and Florida State hadn't gotten in the way, fam would be in even bad position in this. I mean, it was and what it went over those times, but I mean, he was a great man. Nobody did, you know, the halftime chant better than him with his big rumbling voice. And he'll definitely be there to play his recording doing the halftime chant at band performances and stuff. So he's definitely the most iconic fam president ever. And he'll go down as fam used go. You know, he's probably one of probably top of the president of all time. Laurel. I'm sorry, I forgot what the question was. I got, I got thrown off by the died. I'm just a reeling from that. So. Excuse me. I just, transition passed away. I literally, I say died. I say dead. He passed too. He passed. And maybe I'm the wrong person to ask to do this. But, I mean, all right. But yes, Laurel, do you want me to come back to you? I just want to know what the question was. Oh, we're giving our feelings about Frederick Humphries. I wouldn't know. I don't know if you knew him. I figured Orr's might. So that's why I went with him first. So I didn't know him, but I think it says something about anyone who has transitioned that you can, even if you don't know them personally, the best judgment you have of them is how everyone else speaks about them. And so just from what I saw is just like, you know, what we call an education, someone who is truly transformative, not just on what they actually did, but how they impacted so many people's lives. And I hope that we could have many more leaders that we can talk about that way in like the next 25, 50 years beyond one institution. And I think, you know, granted, you could say the times were different, things like that, but I just think what anyone leader is able to do is able to transform, make a way out of no way, even when you have insufficient funds. I think that that's monumental. And so I would hope that his legacy serves as a model for current leaders, future leaders, leaders in training, students, staff, facilities management, cafeteria workers, and the outer community of how you make an impact, not just in the tangible, but also in the intangible through the seeds that you plant in other students. I was just about to say, like when I did this, I was gonna say, legacy, legacy, it's legacy. From a pure non-emotional standpoint, that man, Dr. Humphries, did so well at fan view that in 1998, they were named College of the Year by Time and Princeton Review. Now, I don't wanna put on plateau white-based stipulations, but we already know how schools are ranked, how that's influenced heavily by money, how that's blew us heavily by national branding. So the fact that this man in the work that he did was able to go back to his alma mater and do so well in that role, that 12 years after he took the hell, that a national publication such as Time, named fan view the best school, the top school of the year, that in itself speaks to the work that he's done, right? Winston. So, from a family that's full of Tennessee State alumni and teachers, and because they used to funnel teachers to DPS from Tennessee State, you have to tip your hat to what Ray Humphries did in his tenure for me personally as an HBCU president and how much it's influenced me personally, just from, like I said, from educators that I've had and family members who benefited from his tenure at TSU particularly, and then even peers who were at fan when he was there as well. So, I think it does beg a question about legacies and what it looks like, I think as a sector, there probably needs to be more attention paid to younger women of color taking over those roles and kind of leading the torch in the way of the transition into the new age of, and hopefully pushing and moving our institutions into the new age in order for that to be successful. I think black women are probably gonna play a huge role and should play a huge role in those transitions positively that we hope to see moving forward. I am curious to those folks that are kind of being tabbed for those things and paying close attention to Texas Southern and their recent appointment and hoping that is kind of like a beacon of, again, the possibilities going forward for the sector as a whole. But, and it does make you wonder if will we see that, you know, the kind of legacies like Fred Humphrey's present day, we hope. KD. You're right. I have much else to offer, man. I can dose this to his family, of course, praying for their peace. Clearly a great man, somebody I think if you are sitting in a leadership position, you should probably try to emulate his formula in some way, shape, form, or fashion. It does make me wonder, since we're talking about, we're talking about legacy, like, when are we as a community are we ever gonna be allowed just to build legacies? Because not just the higher ed, but across the border seems like every time we get a leadership position, it's just taking from us just a little bit too soon. Or we're just a little bit too unfairly in comparison to our counterparts and other demographics. And so if you can see the impact that one man had on one school in one state, and in so many lives, you know, over a span of I'm guessing 20 or 30 years, plus, right, why can't we have more of what he does? Right, that's the thing that comes to mind, especially again, in this context of legacy, right? He loved what he was committed to. And that's always an amazing thing, an amazing feeling to know that, you know, when you leave this earth, as you had an impact and it was overtly positive, right? So yeah, just, you know, praying for the family. That's all I got. That people will still say your name. That is going to do it for us tonight. Anybody have any last words? No more mentions of that school in Atlanta that is adjacent to a hotel with a football field that is actually a garden, that is actually a forest, that is actually a graffiti alley. No such place exists as a collection of buildings. We can't talk about Mary, we can't talk about Marriott Brown College. That's going to stick, that's going to stick. We cannot mention college. We can't mention the Baltimore HBCUs. The place that shall not be named. This has been another episode of HBCU Digest, Digest After Dark on Sirius XM Radio, channel 142 HBCU, the pride of Howard University Radio. I am your hostess, Tiffany Permanently, forever on the road. And we will catch you all maybe next week. Who knows, but we'll see. Stay safe, good night.