Intro to Black Biz Schools
The rise of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the later part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century was developed to reverse the damage of slavery and Jim Crow segregation in the educational and economic spheres for recently freed or less recently relocated Black people within the United States. In that same spirit of Black control of Black spaces as a means of promoting economic empowerment, newer, privately controlled HBCUs that operate outside of the century-old “separate but equal” U.S.
constitutional framework also cultivated business schools that are under the ownership or provided in business education geared toward the political and/or economic interests of the African-descended diaspora. Historically, there are particular manifestations as: historically Black business schools and formal educational programs that operate outside of the rubric centered on people of African descent and that are not and have never been under the administrative and/or financial control of people of African descent, but that, to all appearances or in specific programs, adopt a “charity” model.
Black business schools have five distinguishing characteristics that make them different from mainly white and non-conforming B-schools. These characteristics define and inform the emergence of the Black business schools and curricular endeavors that exist today. The first characteristic of a Black business school is that it is a manifestation and promoter of the Pan African struggle: establishing business schools and, in return, business as an entity distinct and separate from “management” and the rest of the non-business world is a means of promoting the very trilateral foundational vision that brought together Pan Africanist powerhouses early in the 20th century.
For those people of African descent around the world in general, the factor is explicitly Pan African in its goals and form. Furthermore, these business schools promote direct and indirect ties with the rest of the diaspora as well as to the continent of Africa itself. In doing so, it ties business to the economic and political concerns of the African diaspora.
Historical Context
With the conclusion of the Civil War in the mid-1860s and the ratification of the 14th Amendment, conditions were made more favorable for the development of formal black businesses and business schools. Racial separation was a fact of life for all African Americans, but the period leading up to and the period just after the United States Civil War marked the first time when black colleges and universities became a significant part of American higher education.
Eight historically black colleges were founded between 1865 and 1872. Among them were Howard University, which still exists in the District of Columbia today as a medical, law, and graduate school university, and Atlanta University, which primarily trained blacks in professional skills and currently forms the core of Clark Atlanta University.
Free African Americans had established businesses long before Emancipation was declared. Now, many pressed for the establishment of schools to train their sons and daughters in the ways of business and economics. The very first black business schools were founded in the North: Wilberforce College in Ohio with a business school opened in 1863, and Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in Natchez, Mississippi, established in 1871 with a university business school open for the 1872-1873 year.
The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association of Durham, North Carolina, which became the country’s largest black-owned business and forerunner of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance, was co-founded by Aaron McDuffie Moore, Charles Clinton Spaulding, and John Merrick, and became an important employer of the black community of Durham. At about the same time, separate “colored” business schools were established at Lincoln University of Missouri, Biddle University, and Morgan State College. Business instruction was offered to students in Kentucky at the State University of Louisville from 1874 to 1891, with a convertible department offering Latin-Scientific, Classical, and Business English.
Key Components of Black Business School Models
Deciding on the key components of an effective Black Business School model from the network of global good practice will help to identify, compare, and contrast models and also will guide the development of appropriate parameters and suggestions for further enhancement of BS/BM in Black universities. This is important as adapting best practices from around the world gives African business schools a realistic opportunity to attract students who wish to learn more about emerging markets and emerging economies, without jeopardizing our critical research and teaching priorities.
The output of this section will be a descriptive contextualization and comparison of good practice across models of Black Business Schools with parameters and suggestions key to their success and the building of a foundation in economic participation and thus breaking the cycle of poverty.
There are nine overlapping areas that are used to judge a successful BS/BM for the purposes of values and parameters enumerated in the questionnaires and scoring of the interviews. Firstly, all successful BS/BM are led by a Dean who strengthens and supports the head of school.
What sets them apart is the common understanding and implementation of the responsibilities of this position to “provide leadership in the development of caring communities and responsible citizens and the creation of the cultural climate that educates future students conceptually, technically, functionally, and ethically” and holds paramount “the fundamental goal of facilitating successful student learning and the success of students as free active citizens in a democratic society.” In order to lead, who is central to the goals of learning and success. Leaders combine key “ahead-of-the-times” skills for principals with the urgency and passion of justice as they work in a social context.
The schools attended by participants in their program encompass the private, state, and commercial sectors of South Africa’s education system. They range from “the highest quintile fee-paying institutions” including a quintile B and C girls’ school, two government colleges, four schools reporting to the Ngcobo District Office, one combined/public medium secondary school, rural schools such as Thuthuzela, St. Marks, Langelitsha, and Nqonde, where there are also boarding facilities.
They are mentees’ opportunity to ask for an outcome such as leadership and providing a foundation in economic participation and thus breaking the cycle of poverty and restoring the excess. A second shared component across all Black Business Schools (BBS) is the practice of engaging with local business executives who are partners not only in a syllabus/literature review but adjust their lectures to become relevant to the local and international economies.
In other words, the BBS would then become the place where business academics present how theory in international business is understood and worked on. Each BBS explains itself in the vision and/or mission of its university. Each School of Business systems can be found that helped in the implementation of the NEM prior to guided section. Overall, the BBS is interpreted to be a model of “Systems” and comprises five interrelated and interacting systems.
Three systems focus inwardly into the institutional factors that have been influential in the formation of the BBS (each process may be differently regarded in operationally responsive research) and the “cohorts” (students) that can be found in the NEM partnership of a set of Black management schools. The piece is divided into two broad areas – the first, “Relevant definitions,” outlines all the “tools” that will be used in the article.
The second broad area, “Applying Noddings’ ethic of care to the turnaround challenge in a situation of social injustice (moral exclusion and moral inclusion),” engages Noddings’ value theory in understanding the processes that can help strengthen and underline the righting of intervention to help “anchor” the experiential pedagogical model. The explanations of each of these areas above that steadily the authors will fall in the two broad areas meta-tagged above.
Curriculum Design and Content
1. Introduction Black Business Schools are dedicated to distinct and amplifying goals that are manifested in curriculum design, research and scholarship, and engagement in the classroom and in the community. Curriculum design, and what is to be included within a curriculum, arguably resides at the heart of the mission and function of HBCU Business Schools, Departments, and Programs. The purpose of the curriculum in an HBCU institution is to provide Black students, regardless of their immediate environment and context,
with an appreciation, understanding, and ability to critically comprehend and construct a realistic vision congruent with their interests, needs, aspirations, and those of people who are like them. Today, research, theory, and practice illustrate that African and African American experiences, histories, realities, spiritual frameworks, hope, and abilities are not a panacea for Black student learning and future employment, but they must be seen and experienced directly and indirectly and taught in a way that empowers the often forgotten and systematically marginalized for the sake of their guided self-discovery and human possibility.
An emerging collection of data and data-driven insights are used by Black Business Schools to guide and make precise decisions about what is to be included in the curriculum, how content is to be learned, and who is to deliver the content. Curriculum accentuates and parallels the cultural learning, experiences, and socialization of African and African American students. Culturally relevant learning and group experiences are subjects of learning activities where there is a conjunction at many points between the inner power and the interests, desires, motivations,
aspirations, and values of the African and African American student and the possibilities and opportunities made feasible by the learning content and environment. The role of instruction and instructional strategies fosters group activities that unite the interest of each in the struggle of all. This comes about when learning tends to recognize, expound, and appreciate alternative practices and faith traditions, especially those in the traditional practices of African and African American business, governance, and religions.
Success Factors and Challenges
It is important to understand why Black business schools have been successful and the challenges they face. A large literature has emerged on the effects of leadership on organizational effectiveness. Deriving from this, one can argue that the strong personal leadership of many of the leaders of Black business schools helps drive success. Specific examples include being the toughest in the country,
having the highest admission standards in the country, exceptional faculty, and being in the third tier – the latter of which suggests a commitment to developing an inclusive ethos. Thus, the means that systems leadership enjoys stronger bonds between the leaders shows an unconscious commitment to increased resilience. Resilience among Black business schools has been found to be because they do not rely on a single sales force. The established community ties also suggest that the schools may offer more stability and thus be better equipped to weather the adverse effects of a changing market.
Adaptive leadership is another feature that sets the Black schools apart from those that have closed. The norming institutions of management must be internally ready to meet the delivery needs of this cohort. Economic success for such a management school is compromised by the pressures of economic rationalism, which causes a tendency to standardize the support models for the myriad needs of distinct cultural learning preferences.
Educational leaders can assist in facilitating the sustainability of Black business schools by proactively engaging with their funder base. Much assistance is provided to this cohort to ensure an ongoing, sustainable vision formulation. The effectiveness can be better appraised if modeling focuses on the effects of the federal allocation funding arrangements to identify causal relationships for student learning outcomes.
Case Studies
Three kinds of data best illustrate Black Business School models: the practices and activism of Black businesspeople, accounts from students in Black Business Schools, and the evaluation of those schools by constituents. This section provides a series of detailed case studies of successful Black Business School models and evidence about their effectiveness. At the end of each case study, we discuss special practices in that program that are likely to make it effective along with the challenges it faces. After all case studies are presented, we turn to a comparative analysis.
Some of the broader lessons learned suggest that higher education programs for Black, urban, and impoverished learners are most successful when they are woven into a web of community partnerships. Students in these programs benefit from a mix of academic and career supports, after which they enter careers in low-wage industries or in public sector organizations. They operate in larger higher education incentive systems, and programs funded by government support help to address the social and educational gaps that African Americans face in various industries.
Overall, networks of BBS models have potential for exceptional programs. They have a strong evaluation component that collects data on drop-out rates, retention, transfer to four-year institutions, graduation, and job placement rates. Community awareness is also a key component as programs have derived support from faith organizations, media, and local law enforcement for their work. None of the high-profile programs were established in isolation from the institutional interests and governance of the larger university.
Catholic has succeeded, in part, because it has a strong relationship between the BBS and the rest of the university. Catholic gave the BBS an opportunity to provide general business education to its students—a critical factor behind the successful program. Economically, all of the Black Business Schools, like others in the economic development sector, contribute to the human capital of the communities they serve.
The clear mission of career preparation helps not only students and the university but also contributes to New York’s development as a financial center. Additionally, area firms benefit from a ready-to-go workforce. Black, Catholic, and Touro, especially, count on the business community to transfer networks, provide internship opportunities to students, and offer faculty expertise as well. In terms of community engagement, successful programs then share best practices with the community in conferences or workshops.
Future Trends and Innovations
Ultimately, the future is already influencing Black business schools as we discuss educational models for the extension of the 21st century and the simultaneous influx of information that will be more than 50 times the volume of what it is today. Meanwhile, institutions should be trained to process this information in the most efficient way possible. Moreover, no one is practicing untethered or haptic learning techniques anymore, while creativity and innovation will both play their overdue and pivotal role at the top.
With a renewed interest in teaching, and with liberation movements around the world backing future entrepreneurs and open societies—not least to unlock the potential offered by the global closures of SMEs and BSOs, who form an essential and 84.4 percent segment of the population in the African countries—business schools have also invested in the design of the products of the curriculum, designed not on paper, as they exist anyway, but in reality.
Based on the curriculum in this study, our respondents showed compelling development, strong conviction, and the need for such a sense of urgency difficult to transcend. New, robust definitions of entrepreneurship and the centrality of business at filial and diachronic levels have emerged. Equally compelling is the ennoblement of a concept that was hitherto considered mere improvisation or limited to repetitive and named practitioners, yet today it is synonymous in large part with a constituent branch of knowledge inside entrepreneurship itself.
Moreover, Black start-ups and entrepreneurs can no longer fail to play a role in business academic transformation. At one step or at least in the pedal, they have become essential for this very transformation. In addition, in an altered universe with the smallest particle of matter, we can no longer shun the pole with the most creative imagination, total justification, principles of skills, and transformations in the lessons on a changing world. This revolves around the totality of our curriculum philosophy.
