August 17, 2011
Last week, Prairie View A&M University president George C. Wright penned an editorial for the Washington Post’s higher ed blog < http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/hbcu-president-vows-to-teach-the-largest-class-on-campus/2011/08/08/gIQAW4hk2I_blog.html#pagebreak > on his return to the classroom this fall, along with select members of his executive cabinet. Citing budget cuts and the need for shared sacrifice, Dr. Wright says that he is “nervous and excited” to return as an instructor for an American History lecture course. Boasting 300 students, it will be the largest class on the PVAMU academic slate.
Dr. Wright’s sacrifice is genuine, and strong PR for the movement of institutions facing the reality of more desire and creativity than financial resources. A president returning to his academic roots is a hearty slice of American resolve.
But while his sacrifice may be well-intentioned, it may be among the most counterproductive acts of HBCU leadership seen among the growing tide of discontent and opposition of these institutions.
While PVAMU students will welcome Wright back to the classroom this fall, opposing legislators and pundits of historically black colleges and universities will have one more weapon with which to aim at the veracity of these institutions. For those who say HBCUs are irrelevant within today’s access and opportunity in American higher education, they’ll be able to cite Prairie View as one example of HBCUs no longer making good on the benefit of smaller class sizes and attentive faculty, a critical commodity in the argument for HBCU recruitment and retention.
Critics, perhaps illegitimately, will be able to question the ability for a university president and provost to effectively serve in executive roles while handling course loads, which in Dr. Wright’s case, will be six classes. What lobbying, development opportunities or partnerships with community will be delayed or missed as a result of their teaching obligations? How many individual circumstances requiring upper-level approval or oversight, which at most HBCUs is already stretched thin, will be affected as a result of the transition?
Most of all, the executive-academic hybrid model will give further justification for the HBCU fallacy of doing ‘more with less.’ While its has proven a reality in the matriculation and success for generations of HBCU students and graduates, it is a fast expiring adage in lean economic times. As an advocate for all HBCUs and the struggle for appropriate financing from state and federal partners, it is Dr. Wright’s duty to fight loudly and consistently fight against budget cuts, and not to acquiesce under the quiet guise of shared sacrifice.
Particularly in Texas, with its legislative powers largely seeking to phase out black college merit and value through inequitable funding and support.
It’s not to say that administrators teaching is altogether a bad idea. We can believe that students in the courses will have the immense benefit of tenured faculty experience, and will treasure the opportunity to couch instruction and advocacy for campus culture in the same class period. In theory, PVAMU student stakeholders will be among the only group in the nation to hold regular audience with the campus CEO.
Certainly, it is laudable that Dr. Wright preserved the livelihood of faculty and staff through his return to the classroom. He is not the first or last president to return to the classroom out of preference or necessity, and his ability to effectively serve in both capacities should not be questioned until time reveals all success and failures of the experiment.
But reality demands much more of Dr. Wright, even in the face of staff reductions and diminished academic offerings. He sacrifice, however well-meaning, could contribute to a larger, unintended sacrifice from the entirety of HBCU culture.
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