Creating Opportunity for Black Students
When D’Wayne Edwards began working in the footwear industry 32 years ago, he was one of only a handful of Black designers. Over the years, he has dedicated time to finding more.
During his career he worked for a variety of well-known footwear companies, including Skechers and Nike. At the same time, kids started emailing him their designs, seeking feedback and mentorship, and some became his interns. Edwards eventually retired and, bitten by the “teaching bug,” founded the Pensole Academy, a footwear-design school based in Portland, Ore. It was his goal to funnel more talented Black students into the field of design.
“I did a study of the 96 design colleges and universities in the U.S., and, on average, the African American enrollment was less than 9 percent,” he said. “Half of those 9 percent drop out.”
Now Edwards is looking to reopen the Lewis College of Business, which was Michigan’s only historically Black college, as the Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design. Plans call for the Detroit institution to be tuition-free. The venture has passed its first hurdle, state approval, but there is still work to be done before it can start enrolling students.
A Hole in the Industry
For an aspiring shoe designer, the two most important majors to take in college are product design and industrial design, according to Edwards. But not many HBCUs offer those majors, which he says contributes to the lack of Black representation in the footwear industry.
Companies like Nike, the North Face, and New Balance have sought out Pensole Academy as a potential source for Black talent. And more corporate donors started pledging major dollars to Black initiatives and to the education of Black youth after the murder of George Floyd.
“Some of these companies were asking me to work specifically with HBCU students because they knew that those schools didn’t necessarily have product design or industrial design,” Edwards said.
After hearing from one of his Pensole Academy alums about the Lewis College of Business, which was shuttered in 2013 after losing its accreditation, Edwards investigated the possibility of reopening the college under a new name.
“That was when the seed kind of popped into my head,” he said.
The First Steps
In January, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, of Michigan, signed two bills that support the reopening of the college. One declares that the state is home to an HBCU. Even though Lewis’s original campus, at John R and Ferry Streets in Detroit, was designated as a historical landmark, it had not been acknowledged as an HBCU by the state. The other bill outlines the steps any college that wishes to reopen in the state of Michigan must follow. Edwards helped draft both of the bills.
“Our bill acknowledges that Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design is the lone HBCU in the state of Michigan,” Edwards said in an email to The Chronicle.
One reason the Lewis College of Business lost its accreditation was that its curriculum was outdated. Edwards attributes that to a lack of state funding.
“I am proud to play a part in helping reopen the Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design in Detroit,” Whitmer said in a statement to The Detroit News. “I am committed to expanding educational opportunities for Michiganders across our state to put Michigan first.”
Looking Ahead
Now that Pensole Lewis has received state approval, Edwards is working on the curriculum.
The college has formed a partnership with the College for Creative Studies, in Detroit, while that institution files for its own accreditation. Once opened, Pensole Lewis will be housed in the College for Creative Studies’ A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education until its permanent home in Detroit is selected and developed.
Edwards is not asking for state or federal funding to keep the college tuition-free.
It will be completely funded by donors, he says. The Gilbert Family Foundation and the retailer Target have signed on as founding supporters. They have also arranged for free student housing at the Hotel St. Regis, Edwards says. And he has been in talks with the Industrial Designers Society of America about the possibility of Pensole Lewis being the first HBCU to join the organization.
The college plans to open in March.
