Transcripts For CSPAN2 Washington Journal 20150218 : vimarsa

As chairman of the president s Advisory Board on historically black colleges and universities. Actually this started under president jimmy carter and every president democrat and republican since then has appointed a board as well as a chair so i was privileged to serve president obama and the Obama Administration and hbcus in this capacity. The chief reason for us is to be an advocate for the very good work that so many of our historically black colleges and universities are doing. Host so as part of the work you do on the board talk a little bit about some of the issues you are dealing with not only related to your university but other universities as well and as the white house responsive to those issues . Guest there are a number of issues we are dealing with. We just had a meeting in washington yesterday as an example and we do have some concerns on a number of issues. One of them deals with the Rating System that has been proposed. The good thing about that is that secretary duncan and undersecretary ted mitchell to me are very transparent. They are very responsive. They are listening to what we have to say. There are some other issues that perhaps we could have been the country maybe couldve been better served if we had served in more of an advisory role. For example there is a proposal to provide free tuition at Community Colleges for certain groups. Well you know there are always consequences and unintended consequences. If you think about it if a parent who is already hurting because of the economy has a choice of paying tuition the even at the most inexpensive Public Institutions are getting free tuition then more than likely eight or nine out of 10 will choose the free tuition. I think that the group of institutions that will be harmed the most by this may very well be hbcus. There are some of us that perhaps wont be harmed as much but some of us will be harmed a great deal. One of the things that the board talk about yesterday was that we wished we would have had an opportunity to weigh in a bit more with the policymakers so they could have understood perhaps a more holistic view. One of the analogies that was used is there was also a proposal to eliminate the tax break on the 529s. That is a scholarship for kids to go to school. After the public outcry that has been walked back. I think a little more device from stakeholders and friends before these policies are announced probably probably would better serve everybody. Host on the topic of financers dr. Harvey talk a little bit about pell grants. There were changes made to the Program System which would affect all universities but particularly how do they affect hbcus . Guest this is just another example of what im talking about. You might remember the parent plus loans program was dramatically changed without any real input from any of us and again i must say secretary duncan has been very responsive to us as it relates to trying to work through some of the issues. That was a significant change and the law requires that there be public hearings before there is a significant change. A little bit of foresight would have been helpful there. The pell loan program a program is the same so i am saying i think the advice and counsel of the people that are appointed to provide advice to the council upfront mightve helped a lot. I also hasten to say that secretary duncan really and truly has been very helpful, very transparent and very forthcoming in trying to Seek Solutions to some of these problems. Host our guest is William Harvey of Hampton University. He serves as their president joining us from the cspan bus as we talk with the heads of historically black colleges and universities. If you want to ask him questions about issues along these lines to lines that we have divided this point. 202 7488000 few attentions at an hbcu and and you can tweak your thoughts at that journal at cspan. Org. Dr. Harvey tell us about Hampton University. How do you sell hampton to students that are considering your college to other colleges that they maybe will to go to . Guest well hampton is a wonderful institution. We were founded in 1868 by Brigadier General Samuel Chapman armstrong on some very strong principles. We say that but they do is to provide the very best education possible under any circumstances and compared to an institution. Thats number one and number two we believe very strongly in Character Development. We dont apologize for that. We believe in honesty and integrity and responsibility taking responsibility for ones actions, respect for oneself and respect for others. In todays world we think that these things are just as important as they were when John Armstrong founded the place in 1868. We are on a peninsula here in virginia. We have had water on three sides of her campus. We think its the prettiest campus anywhere bar none. I think that is one of the things that sells itself. We have a wonderful alumni association. They provide Financial Support trade they provide recruitment support and they provide their prayers for us. Down through the years hampton has always had some of the movers and shakers of this country associated with us. John rockefeller was on the board. George eastland who was the patriarch of the Eastman Kodak and coleman. Pont the founder of the. Pont fortune just as examples. Margaret mead and we have had always five or six fortune 500 company ceos associated with us. So our legacy is one of highquality. Not just quality but highquality. The fact that we talk about character so often we feel that as important as i said we really do not apologize for that. Last year as an example when some schools were hurting majority and minority hampton received 19,000 applications for about 1000 positions in our freshman class. A lot of that has to do with our curricula offerings and we have strong business. We have pharmacy. We have physical therapy. We have got nursing. We have a strong liberal arts undergirding sore Academic Program is very strong and the insistence on Character Development resonates with a lot of people. The fact that we have a strong Extracurricular Activity Program program. Ever your Hampton University wins championships. Even in the last olympics we had two young ladies that competed. Womens Basketball Team has won the conference championship for the last five years. The womens Softball Team won it last year. The Volleyball Team won the championship last year. If you look at all those things starting with academics and then you look at the Character Development that i have come back to three or four times and probably will come back to again because as i said we are unapologetically pushing that in our young people. One of the things that i tell our young folks and by the way i meet with students once a month. The student leaders the sga president and Vice President other officers the class president s and others the editor of the student newspaper, the editor of our yearbook. So we meet with her students often and we talk about the kinds of things that im talking about here. I tell them that is so very important that no matter what they do when they beat hampton become a doctor, lawyer businessman or woman whatever its so important for them to not just mouth the words of giving back to their Community Trade they must be of service. We teach that and we preach that and that goes a long ways. Hosgri her first call for dr. William harvey of Hampton University is marcel from lille and north carolina. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Good morning dr. Harvey. I did not attend a historically black college but my children did. I went to purdue and one thing i can say about the hbcu that they seem to have a camaraderie that did not exist for a black student especially one that was not attending a typical college curriculum. I did have an opportunity to visit your campus when my young people were looking at schools. Jack and jill of america had a Team Conference there and you have to drop dead gorgeous campus. I was not even aware of that when i was looking at schools in the 70s. My bond with hampton is such that when i was in an interior Design Business that a family gave to me my sorority i spoke to for different black universities and i consider howard tuskegee and if you can describe the relationship of hampton had with tuskegee is the ivy league of black colleges. Host thank you. Dr. Harvey. Guest well thank you very much and again what she is saying is first of all i keep saying that we prepare our students with some of the best in the entire world and with their Character Development and the beauty of our campus she talked about the camaraderie. There are so many young folk to go to schools and i dont have a problem with anybody going to a majority school when they graduate they can find them here at home coming and you can find them here at our athletic contests and other kinds of contests. Its almost as if we have at all, strong academics, good camaraderie, love of campus, love of each other and that works well with us. I would emphasize the fact that when im talking the first thing i talk about is good academics. Thats important with us. Thats a sine qua nonwith us but the other things almost like icing on the cake. The fact is they are here. I went to a predominantly black college undergraduate school in Virginia State and i got my doctorate from harvard. I have had the very wonderful good fortune of being able to get the best of both worlds and i will tell you Hampton University measures up to any institution and as we get more into the conversation will give you some examples. Host let. Host let me had to take a call from peter in reno nevada. Good morning, go ahead. Caller gentlemen good morning. I am and studies at fordham and i wanted to complement the athletic concert on their high standards as far as academics are concerned. I am in an arena right now were actually designing a solar park but i wanted to make a few comments here. If here. I visited over 300 universities and colleges in north america and caribbean. My mother prior to their pastor passing visited hampton with me a few summers ago. Two things i would like you to comment on. One the increase that i think is necessary in the program because of high tuition mainly in a private university. Fordham is 63,000 a year and marvin mcnickle who was head of the illogical school at colgate did graduate work at Florida State and taught at the university of mexico briefly in 1992. I wanted you to comment about that in if you could while i was a sophomore at fordham to allen baci decision which was a decision that affects people who are of caucasian persuasion and a lot dont realize they can go to the historical black colleges and universities as a minority. Host thanks peter. Dr. Harvey go ahead. Guest to your formal question as you know as to your latter questioned the market decision created a great deal of consternation with the number of educators both black and white because it did affect both majority and minority. Hampton happens to be about 15 in any given year, 12 to 15 white. We are at historically black colleges and universities proud of that tradition. Many of us are here by choice and the fact is that we do provide such a highquality education. To your former question about tell we need to do more and we need to do better providing support for disadvantaged students no matter where they go. There is no norm acrosstheboard because there were more programs at some institutions unless that others. But the fact is that education is the key to freedom for everybody. Education is the key to a good society, good government, a good country and the more that we can provide education for everybody but better off all of us will be great i have been a strong advocate for increasing the pell grants. Unfortunately pell grants are down at historically black colleges and universities. I am known and my reputation is that im always very respectful but im always very direct sowing conversations with people at the white house and the department of education and other places i am pushing us for a studio to get more pell grants that will probably help more hbcus than hampton. The fact is my number one educational priority is always the hampton but number two is hbcus because i believe so strongly in what we do. That is why i spend my time energy and efforts to work on behalf of hbcus and quite frankly im proud of some of the things we have been able to accomplish. Im proud of the fact that we do speak truth to power in a very respectful way and that has worked well for us here at hampton and i think it has worked well for the president s Advisory Board and hbcus. Host dr. Harvey you have about 4400 students enrolled at your university. How does that number compared to other universities and are you concerned about that size as you go on for the colleges longevity . Guest we do have about 4400. We had about 6300 at one point several years ago and we made a conscious effort to reduce because our student faculty ratio is about 141. Only got up to 6300 it was about 181 and we thought that was too large. You might remember i said earlier in the Program Last Year we had about 19,000 applications in the year before that we had about 16,000 applications. The fact is if we were enrollment driven not only would we have 4400 students, we probably could have 14000 students. We dont want to be a school that size. We want to be the kind of school that we are come emphasizing academics, emphasizing character emphasizing the kind of nurturing that hampton and other hbcus bring to the table. So we would probably always be somewhere between 4,005,000 but that is by design. Because if we wanted to turn the switch as early as next year we could go up to six or 7000 given the number of applications that hampton is receiving. Host washington d. C. Are lined for those who attended and hbcu is ed. Go ahead. Caller dr. Harvard hillel. I also attended Hampton University and i speak german and spanish also. Hampton university the first ph. D. Program you had for physicists. Hampton university did a marvelous job and you are doing great to this day but im concerned about hbcus losing their business department. We are not getting our fair share of the Industrial Projects and physics are very important subject. I wanted to get your opinion on that. When i was in germany the German Government required when industries go on vacation our students are able to go to work in the industry and the german law they had to i dont see why they dont have a Similar Program in this country to do that. Host thank you ed and dr. Harvard is a tweet from a viewer this is how much of your budget is dedicated to his Science Technology engineering and math majors compared to the humanities. Guest will to your speaker first of all let me say to him go pirates. Im so happy to hear you talk about your experience at hampton. I absolutely agree with you as it relates to the stem fields and we did have the first ph. D. Program in physics. We had 24 masters degrees and 70 or 72 bachelor degrees. But as a relates to stem the fact is we need to get more minorities into stem. The fact also is unfortunately there was a National Science Foundation Report just last month which indicated that support for Stem Education by the federal government was down tremendously. One of the things the National Science Foundation Report said was that we are at the lowest level since the year 2000. If you think about it everybody talks about the fact that its very difficult for a person with just a high School Graduate to get a job. Then one goes on to college if one is fortunate enough to do that. And if there is an opportunity to study any of the stem fields everybody is talking about it. That is where the jobs are going to be and what the federal government reducing that we think thats a travesty. I spoke to this yesterday in our meeting because again these were not my statistics. These were the National Science Foundation Statistics that stem training and support from the federal government to hbcus was down. Now it makes no sense. If you talk about the fact that you want to get more folks in the stem fields, talk about the fact that you want to be able to get to be number one again as it relates to baccalaureate up in the world we used to be a now we are not. You cant get there without hbcus. He cant get there without the hamptons of the world. You cant get there so i wish those policymakers could understand that. You say one thing out of one side of your mouth and then they do Something Else that doesnt support the contention you are making. Im very much interested in trying to push the whole concept of stem. We have a school of engineering and the school of science in pharmacy and the school of nursing. We have got and the various departments in those schools including things like Computer Science and the like. We need to be putting more money into those fiel