‘Just as Important as STEM’
Last month, I wrote about what a few HBCUs have been able to do a year after receiving large-scale donations from the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Large amounts of the money went directly toward supporting individuals — helping students pay for college and giving employees better health care and pay, for example.
But a few colleges decided to dedicate some of their funds to bolstering arts programing.
HBCUs are known for nurturing artists, from musicians to dancers and writers, and have long been pillars for the preservation of Black artistic tradition. This can be seen in popular films like Drumline and Beyoncé's Homecoming, which showcase high-stepping marching bands and energetic steppers.
But these institutions don’t often receive funding to support and expand arts programs. Much of the money given to HBCUs in the year-plus since they’ve seen renewed attention has been directed toward STEM-related fields.
A chunk of the $577-million settlement Maryland HBCUs were awarded last year will help fund STEM programs that are in high demand. In July, Alabama State University, Florida A&M University, and J.F. Drake State Technical College, in Huntsville, Ala., each received $1.2-million grants from NASA. And in June, Google announced that it would be giving 10 HBCUs a total of $50 million in grant funds to address the diversity gap in tech.
The arts haven’t seen the same dedicated infusions of cash.
“These programs don’t get the high dollars,” said Emma Joahanne Thomas-Smith, the director of the Toni Morrison Writing Program at Prairie View A&M University. “They’re just as important as STEM.”
Mission Critical
“Even if you are not a student of the arts, we all know that exposure to the arts aids in all types of learning,” said Steve D. Mobley Jr., an assistant professor of higher education administration at the University of Alabama.
When Mobley was a student at Howard University, he was excited to attend master classes with well-known Black actors like Debbie Allen and Ossie Davis, even though he was a communications major.
“You come in class one day and you’re able to sit at the feet of these legends,” he said. “I knew that I didn’t necessarily want to go into the arts, but learning from them, getting that history, and having that exposure is just life changing.”
Several HBCUs are now making those kinds of opportunities available to students, thanks to Scott’s donations.
In Texas, Prairie View, which received $50 million, hired Nikki Giovanni, an American poet and activist, to be a writer-in-residence as part of its inaugural Toni Morrison Writing Program. Components include a partnership with local high-school English departments and elementary-school readings accompanied by informal book discussions with the author.
There’s also a creative-writing contest for high-school seniors, with cash prizes. The top three winners who are admitted into the university may receive a scholarship in the same amount they won in the contest.
“A lot of our programs are designed around the mechanical arts: engineering, sciences, and things like that,” said James Palmer, Prairie View’s provost. “We don’t always remember how important the humanities are to that mission.”
Morgan State University, in Baltimore, used a portion of the $40 million it received from Scott to launch a $60,000 Zora Neale Hurston Creative Writing and Expression Award, to be given annually in creative writing, and visual and performing arts, to several graduate and undergraduate students.
And North Carolina A&T State University, which received $45 million, also launched an artist-in-residency program in the fall. Artists-in-residence will engage in university and departmental lectures, performances, demonstrations, master classes, and consultations. Some of the money was used to provide scholarships for students in the university choir, band, and jazz program. The university installed plexiglass cubicles in rehearsal spaces so that musicians could practice in the same room.
Evolution in Arts Funding
Absent donations from Scott, Mobley says that HBCUs have had to be creative with the way they get support for arts-related programing. Most of the time this means prominent alumni who have had careers in the arts are the ones who give back to these programs, he said.
In February 2021, Dillard University, an HBCU in New Orleans, announced that multi-Grammy-award winner PJ Morton would be its first ever artist-in-residence. There, he conducts master classes in songwriting, music publishing, studio production, and talent management. Sharandall Lewis, a music major who graduated last year, won the university talent show in April and got the opportunity to have a single produced by Morton Records.
Morton attended Morehouse College, a men’s HBCU in Atlanta; the award-winning novelist Toni Morrison started writing The Bluest Eye as a student at Howard University; and Zora Neale Hurston was also a student there.
But HBCUs can’t rely on alumni alone to keep their arts programs afloat.
In recent years, there has been an increase in nonprofit arts organizations pairing with HBCUs and receiving federally funded grants toward arts programing, according to Ayanna Hudson, the acting deputy chairman for programs and partnerships at the National Endowment for the Arts. Hudson oversees the NEA’s HBCU-engagement efforts.
This year, the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts received a $30,000 grant to support a master-class series for aspiring classical-music singers at Morgan State; Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga.; and Virginia State University.
At Kentucky State University, students will soon be able to intern and volunteer for a new artist-in-residence program at the nearby Josephine Sculpture Park, which was approved for a $15,000 grant to support its own artist-in-residency program.
“We want to make sure that all HBCUs, every single HBCU is aware of the funding opportunities and that we are providing support to them so that they can submit a competitive grant application,” Hudson said. —Oyin Adedoyin