According to a news release last month, the new digital learning tool will feature an array of academic courses and career training pathways for HBCU students to take classes from anywhere for more flexibility.
“For too long there has been a major innovation and investment gap between this nation’s HBCUs and other higher education institutions,” UNCF President and CEO Michael Lomax said in a public statement. “HBCUv not only aims to close that gap but also lead the way in online instruction and degree-granting.”
The announcement noted that the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing created massive new challenges for colleges and universities, particularly HBCUs that educate a large number of first-generation and low-income Black students with limited funding. It noted that UNCF trained 2,500 faculty to develop courseware for online classes, but limitations to current learning management systems made collaboration and community engagement difficult.
The UNCF said instructors and students unfamiliar with online learning found learning management systems cumbersome, and instructors were frustrated at not being able to easily track student progress and gauge their need for academic support, among other limitations.
“What we learned from the pandemic was that better training isn’t enough,” Shawna Acker-Ball, senior director at UNCF’s Teaching and Learning Center said of the decision to build a new platform in a public statement. “We need better tools and technology to deliver on the rich instruction and the strong culture of America’s HBCUs and extend the transformative experience to students online.”
Valora Richardson, director of digital solutions and innovation at UNCF, said input from students, faculty and administrators will play a key role in further developing the new platform.
“They know what they need, and we heard them,” she said.
According to the news release, HBCUv will provide digital resources to assist students with career planning and degree program matching, and allow students across multiple HBCUs to connect with one another on one social platform.
The announcement said HBCUv will enable synchronous and asynchronous learning for students to choose courses that work best with their schedules. In addition, it will use data and machine learning technology to create predictive analytics for student performance, allowing instructors to identify students in need of academic support.
UNCF's partner institutions in developing and piloting the new platform include Benedict College and Claflin University in South Carolina, Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, Dillard University in Louisiana, Jarvis Christian College in Texas, Johnson C. Smith University and Shaw University in North Carolina, Lane College in Tennessee, and Talladega College in Alabama, according to the announcement.
Beginning in 2023, the announcement said, more than 8,000 students enrolled at these schools will be able to cross-register on courses offered through HBCUv. UNCF officials also plan to expand the platform for HBCU students elsewhere to access the program.
The announcement said the initiative was made possible by $10 million from the Karsh Family Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, Citi Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.
“This is just the beginning,” Ed Smith-Lewis, vice president of strategic partnerships and institutional programs at UNCF, said in a statement. “Solving for the historic inequities that HBCUs and their students and staff face will take a sustained and concerted effort from a diverse coalition of nonprofit and for-profit partners.”
