If You Can Dream It, You Can Achieve It, At An HBCU or PBI!

NAFEO Responds to Proposed SUNO-UNO Merger

Challenging times require difficult funding choices. To assist Governor Jindal and the Louisiana
Legislature in exploring a range of options for meeting the educational needs of their
increasingly diverse citizenry, while reducing costs, in 2009, Governor Jindal convened the
Louisiana Higher Education Review Commission. The Commission was a blue ribbon panel of
some of the nation's leading higher education experts, as well as leaders from the legislative,
education, business and industry communities of the State of Louisiana. Persons such as Belle
Wheelan, President of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools; Mark Musick, former
president of the Southern Regional Education Board; David Longanecker, President of the
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education and other representatives from the
elementary and secondary education communities, 2- and 4- year colleges and universities
served on the Commission. I was privileged to serve on the Commission representing the
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-serving Institutions. Over
the course of approximately one year, the Commission heard from virtually every segment of the
community.

The Commission explored the possibility of merging SUNO and UNO and expressly rejected the
option for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: (1) the important role that SUNO is
playing in meeting the education needs of mostly adult, first generation students of fewer
financial means in attaining a four-year degree in unique programs that respond directly to the
needs of the State's urban and traditionally underserved communities: urban education, criminal
justice, entrepreneurship, social work programs that prepare students not only in the core social
work curricula, but also prepare social workers as advocates and for the empowerment and
transformation of under-resourced and underserved residents and communities; (2) the vastly
different student bodies being served by the SUNO and UNO having little to do with race but
much to do with that tremendous differences in the enrollment sizes, with UNO being a large
campus (12,000) in which students who are used to, and in need of smaller, nurturing education
environments, would likely not receive the types of supports and attention that will enable them
to thrive; and differences in admissions criteria that would likely leave a large segment of the
New Orleans community that is desirous of attaining a 4-year degree without a viable
option; and (3) it was recognized by the Commission and the witnesses who appeared before the
Commission that SUNO also plays an important role as part of the nation's only HBCU system:
Southern University System (SUS). SUS is comprised of four unique, complimentary,
geographically dispersed campuses: a four-year undergraduate campus in Baton Rouge; a
graduate campus in Baton Rouge that is home to the State's only 1890s land-grant institution and
one of the nation's five HBCU law schools, that has one of the most diverse student bodies of all
of the State's higher education institutions; and a 2-year campus, Southern University
Shreveport, that has among the highest completion rates of the State's two-year institutions. The
system also operates the Timbuktu Academy, an elementary and secondary academy that is
preparing students for the rigors of college life.

With President Ronald Mason having recently assumed the helm of the SUS, the System is
poised to become a national model of how to successfully prepare, inspire, and connect diverse
students to college and opportunity by creating nurturing, rigorous environments beginning at
PK and moving students successfully through high school (Timbuktu Academy), perhaps into
and through a 2-year institution (Shreveport), through a four-year, traditional university (Baton
Rouge), through graduate or professional school, and for adults and non-traditional students,
through Southern University New Orleans. Now is not the time to destroy, but rather
to strengthen the Southern University System. The critical components are there for the type of
model envisioned by this Administration and many governors across the nation, who are
grappling with how to create a seamless, successful PK-20 education pathway to prepare more
students to thrive at home and globally. Governor Jindal should heed the wise counsel of his
Higher Education Review Commission and support the strengthening of SUNO and the Southern
University System. Corporations and foundations that are looking for a model of the new
education pipeline in which to invest should look no further than SUS and invest in the model
that President Mason and the team of remarkable administrators, faculty, and staff at SUS are
trying to perfect.

Lezli Baskerville, Esquire

President & CEO
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education