New HBCU Initiative Leader Seeks to Forge Relationships Between HBCUs and Obama Administration: Dr. John Silvanus Wilson Jr. looks back at his days as a Morehouse College student as a time when faculty, staff and administrators formed a campus community that was nurturing and family-oriented – a distinguishing characteristic of many of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities.
“But I’m a little concerned that positive feature for some (HBCUs) is becoming more legend than reality,” said Wilson, the new executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. “So I think there is a need to preserve that. For some, it’s slipping away.”
That is just one of the aspects of HBCUs that Wilson, an assistant professor at The George Washington University, hopes to jumpstart as head of the office in the U.S. Department of Education that serves as a liaison for HBCUs, the White House and President Obama’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
