Inside the Development of HBCUv, a New Online Learning Platform for HBCUs
At Ethos, we practice this version of human-centered design that we call equity-centered design. The questions that you ask in equity-centered design are all centered around how we can design for the most vulnerable populations among us. In the case of HBCUs, it's not just Black college students but first-generation college students, students who come from a home where English isn't their first language. When you design a platform around the needs of the most vulnerable, what you end up getting is a platform that is going to better serve everyone's needs.
Smith-Lewis: It was that equity-centered design approach that really sold us. UNCF was founded in 1944. We've grown that historic fundraising operation to be one of the largest scholarship providers outside of the federal government. We are not a tech company, and we own that explicitly. But we are an aggregator, an influencer, a champion, and an advocate for historically Black colleges and universities. We take on the role of aggregator of resources and support partners to help execute and build HBCUv, as well as torchbearer for those institutions who have historically been excluded from opportunities like this.
We're working with nine steering committee HBCUs and three development partners: Clark Atlanta University, Claflin University, and Johnson C. Smith University. They are the holders of everything that is teaching and learning and the HBCU culture. When we first laid down the principles for HBCUv, we all agreed — Deloitte Digital, UNCF and our partnering HBCUs — that this project would be for HBCUs by HBCUs. And we really hold true to that. And so those three development partners sit with us in meetings every week, multiple meanings, they're probably tired of Nathan and me, but they are part of the decision-making process. We take them through every piece of the design effort. Their role is to really ensure that the product we create at the end of the day reimagines that HBCU experience for a 21st century.
Campus Technology: You mentioned the pandemic being a disruptive force in higher ed. Could you talk about what the impact was on HBCUs?
Smith-Lewis: We know that there's a potential to lose a generation in these few short years of not having the opportunity to be in-person and to really support learners on their journey. When we think about the types of students we serve, who are 75% low-income, about 60% first-generation — for many of our students, getting to college was a life goal. And then they got to college and were told to go back home. Imagine how demoralizing that might have been for those students and those families — that is something that we are still going to experience the net results of. There's still a big unknown there.
Many of our HBCUs are in the original Black Belt. Think about the Southeastern United States, where economic mobility is low, but also economic development isn't as rich as it might be in some urban areas. And so things like tech infrastructure and stable WiFi became a challenge. Having the hardware necessary to do the work became a challenge. Really understanding how to engage effectively in the learning environment through tech-based tools is still a challenge that we're addressing, both on the student learning side as well as the faculty teaching side.