Association Creates Plan for ‘1890’ HBCUs To Meet Modern Challenges: Dr. Lorenzo Esters has spoken resolutely about the “bold, futuristic and intentional” five-point plan launched last month for 18 historically Black land-grant colleges and universities, but he could have easily been summing up his first year as the person tapped by the nation’s oldest higher education association to advance access and diversity among its member institutions.As the debate over the relevancy of Black colleges continues to swirl inside and outside of academia and troublesome HBCU graduation and retention rates linger, Esters, vice president of the Office for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), has this message at the ready for critics: “Success is a longer road for historically Black colleges and universities.”
