Frank Matthews, co-founder of Cox, Matthews, and Associates, Inc., publisher/editor-in-chief of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education and managing partner of Applications Quest LLC, was the guest lecturer Wednesday for the Presidential Leadership Lecture Series. Jackson State University President Carolyn W. Meyers invites thought leaders from across the country to the campus to share their perspectives on emerging trends with faculty, staff and students.
Matthews’ magazine chronicles higher education issues impacting minority educators and students. The magazine was first published in 1984. After his lecture, Matthew was interviewed about his magazine and other topics. Here’s the Q-and-A:
How has your magazine’s coverage of historically black colleges and universities changed since Diverse began publishing nearly 30 years ago?
“When we began, it was the primary focus. Since then, it has become part of a larger mosaic. We still want to shine a spotlight on (HBCUs) because the things they are doing are so important. But we want to include them in the context of overall minority participation in post-secondary education. That’s the biggest change that’s taken place.”
What are some of the biggest obstacles facing HBCUs today?
“The (federal and state) spending cuts are going to disproportionately affect black colleges. The programs on Title III, the situation we saw at Grambling, can all be attributed to spending cuts. Also, there’s an image issue. HBCUs are doing extraordinary things, but the image out there is that ‘If the kids were really smart, they’d be at Ole Miss or they would be at LSU’, which is far from the truth. They don’t use that same standard when other students select to go to a particular school.”
Discuss some positive trends at HBCUs.
“Black colleges have never been reticent about tackling the most important, most vexing problems in higher education. Let’s say remediation. Remediation is taught at Stanford and Harvard. But when remediation is taught at an HBCU, it’s cast it in a very negative context. Also, these HBCUs are doing some extraordinary research. They’re filing patent applications. They’re producing a disproportionately high number of people who go on to become productive members of society.”
What is your impression of Jackson State University?
“Jackson State is in the middle of something very, very important. Your enrollment is up, which is bucking against the trend. So many schools have lost students. The technology and the innovations taking place here are second to none. I see a lot of innovation and a lot of introductions of technology at a lot of different schools. I think what’s different here is that it’s been thought out very well. You have the faculty involved. You know who your end user is, who the customer is, and the customer is the student. Sometimes it may be something that the administration wants to do, but they don’t have that consensus and they can’t sell it. Seemingly, you’ve turned the corner on that and all of higher education can learn from that.”