June 4, 2010
DURHAM -- Marybeth Gasman is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The development office there -- the school's fundraising arm -- has 600 employees.Her university also receives more research dollars each year than all of the nation's more than 100 historically black colleges and universities put together.
During the second day of a symposium on the future of HBCUs Friday, Gasman offered advice on how to redress those imbalances.
"Funding is the single most pressing issue for HBCUs," Gasman told several hundred academics and administrators gathered at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel for the symposium hosted by N.C. Central University. "HBCUs have a proven track record of success. It's an absolute necessity for their funding to be increased."
The professor said the institutions must work to beef up both their governmental funding and their private fundraising.
She suggested investing in fundraising infrastructure, including appropriate technology, and grant writing training.
"You have to also invest in data generation," Gasman said. "You can't ask [for money] if you don't know who to ask."
To increase private fundraising, HBCUs simply have to ask earlier and more often, she said.
Many HBCU alumni are rarely, if ever, approached about donating money, Gasman added, although, blacks statistically give more per individual than other racial or ethnic groups.
"But if you don't ask, people don't give," she said. "You have to instill a culture of philanthropic giving in your students when they are students. Every student needs to know why they are there, how they got there, and who funded them."
Frequently, those alumni assume that the school is being funded by the state while "HBCUs have waited too long and have failed to ask [for money] in any systemic way," Gasman said.
The schools need to create what she called a new narrative and create "a serious dialogue with Federal and state officials. If they are serious about increasing the percentage of college graduates in the nation, they must funnel more money to HBCUs."
SANDRA M. PHOENIX
Program Director
HBCU Library Alliance
sphoenix@hbculibraries.org
http://www.hbculibraries.org/
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