Historically black colleges and universities are at a crossroads, but still have an important role to play, a panel of experts said Tuesday.

More than 70 faculty members and students gathered at the K.E. White Graduate Center for a forum on the history of HBCUs. The forum, sponsored by the Elizabeth City State University Department of History & Political Science, featured a panel discussion on the past, present and future of black educational institutions.

Justin Falls/The Daily Advance (ENLARGE)

Dr. James T. Minor (right) speaks during Elizabeth City State University Tuesday at a Black History Month forum at the K.E. White Center. Listening on the left are professors Carolyn Mbajekwe (center) and Marybeth Gasman.

Carolyn Mbajekwe, ECSU assistant professor of history, noted that HBCUs have a past that is riddled with irony. She said the institutions were founded to preserve racial segregation but served to undermine it through the social activism of university leaders.

"The black college served as the nexus of progressive political activism for the early 20th century," she said, noting the civil rights work of former Morehouse College President Benjamin Mays.

Mbajekwe also said black institutions have been trend-setters. She said they were among the first to integrate their faculty, accepting Jewish scholars in the 1940s when they were rejected elsewhere. HBCUs also were among the first to educate students from Africa, including Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

However, HBCUs today face numerous challenges, ranging from maintaining financial stability to ensuring graduates are prepared for careers that pay higher wages, Mbajekwe said. The solution is not to break with past traditions, but to balance them with a need to be relevant in a new era, she said.

"We must look to history as a guide," Mbajekwe said.

James T. Minor, an assistant professor of higher education at Michigan State University, said HBCUs also face increased competition for students. At one point in time, 75 percent of African-American students attended black institutions, Minor said. Today, that number is only 14 percent.

Minor, who was rejected from Michigan State as an undergraduate, said attending an HBCU — in his case, Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss. — provided him with an opportunity to earn a degree. However, he noted that a number of African-American students today are not choosing to attend HBCUs.

"The whole civil rights movement and doing the black thing may or may not be relevant to students attending college now," he said.

Minor said HBCUs are also faced with disparities in per student funding and the availability of graduate degree programs. He said the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill receives about $15,700 per student in state funds, while ECSU gets just under $8,000 per student.

Marybeth Gasman, a historian of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, said black institutions could attract more public and private funding if they do a better job of marketing themselves.

She said the achievements of HBCUs tend to be overlooked by the media, particularly the schools' traditions of civic engagement and service learning. As a result, policymakers don't know the true value of black colleges. This could be risky for the future of HBCUs, she said.

"Black colleges cannot continue as is," Gasman cautioned.

She suggested HBCUs revamp their Web pages, offer public relations internships for students and forge better relationships with reporters. Passing along knowledge of HBCU success stories will help increase funding, she said.

Gasman also said HBCUs can attract more students, including white, Latino and Asian students, by stressing the affordability and value of historically black institutions.