Nikiyah Clark had five boxes and a backpack when she ultimately received the keys to her Howard University dorm. Weeks earlier, the school had told her this moment would never come.
When Howard administrators informed Clark — and hundreds of others — that she was permanently unenrolled for missing a tuition fee deadline, she rode a bus from Cleveland, Ohio, to plea with administrators. She left in tears.
“I didn’t just lose my dream. I lost my way out,” said the 17-year-old, who had pinned her hopes on Howard as a peaceful environment and a path to financial freedom after years of growing up in “survival mode.”
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Shortly after that, the university notified Clark she was once again welcome to enroll. But as she moved into the Washington, D.C., campus on Thursday, she remained uneasy. She worries that the university might reverse its decision yet again, and hopes Howard will make changes so that other students aren’t wrongfully unenrolled.
“I’m definitely not really over that,” Clark said.
While administrators prefer that students, faculty and alumni focus on the school’s new academic year, much of the community’s attention is still trained on the unenrollment debacle. More than 500 incoming first-year students were unenrolled for missing a July tuition payment deadline, the university said. About 200 students have had their enrollment restored.
It was also reported Friday that Howard unenrolled the students about a month after offering voluntary early retirement buyouts to 600 eligible employees. But Howard University said in a statement that the employee buyouts were unrelated and part of a plan for “long-term financial sustainability.”
For some in the Howard community, the bitter experience has raised questions about the legacy of one of the country’s most revered historically Black colleges and universities. Others say such administrative matters won’t lessen the career impact a Howard diploma can have.
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The loss of HBCU luster
Zy’Aira Blackmon had her heart set on attending Howard, seen as the preeminent Black university in the nation.
But, after her enrollment status was revoked and then reinstated within days, the 18-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan, doesn’t feel the same way. The luster Howard once held has been dulled.
“After this situation, most people are going to ignore all the good things Howard has to offer,” said Blackmon, who now will study at Western Michigan University.
When Howard took away 17-year-old Yuisa Davis’ enrollment, her mother hopped on a plane July 28 from the family’s Puerto Rico home to get answers. An administrative official told Karina Polen-Davis and her husband, who was on speakerphone, that she couldn’t answer their questions. Then the official called security.
The Davises say they paid what they thought they owed but the university rescinded enrollment without explanation or recourse.
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The school never budged.
“It’s very disheartening just because there’s so many opportunities that’s kind of just been taken from me without me being able to” find a resolution, said Yuisa Davis, who often visited Howard as a child.
Now, Davis is working with The New School in New York City on possible financial aid.
“The difference in how we’ve been treated has been night and day,” Kenneth Davis said.
Families and university officials blame miscommunication
Interim President Wayne A. I. Frederick told The Associated Press last month that Howard simply followed its payment policy, noting that 2,200 students did meet payment requirements.
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Unenrolled students and their parents did not properly read school communications about a July 10 deadline for half their unpaid balance, with financial aid factored in, Frederick said.
Those students who did everything correctly “deserve to show up on Aug. 17, the first day of class and meet their professors in class, have their housing assignments taken care of,” Frederick said. Previously, the school had to scramble to find enough student housing and adjunct professors to fill classrooms.
Some students assert they followed the school’s payment requirements.
Blackmon said her scholarship had not been included in her balance owed. After being unenrolled, she constantly called and emailed the school.
“They reinstated me. They really didn’t explain much,” she added.
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Ashley Christopher, an attorney and Howard alumna whose son is a sophomore there, thinks Howard shoulders some blame. She is the founder of HBCU Week, a foundation that awards scholarships, and believes students received “bad information” from the school.
“There’s a way to take accountability for a misstep, and also explain that there’s joint responsibility here,” said Christopher, an attorney. “It is not just the parents. It’s not just the students.”
Frederick said that how Howard has handled unenrollment and reenrollment can contribute positively to the school’s image.
“All this does is strengthen our legacy and helps us perform as a high-performing institution on the administrative side, as we have been doing in the past,” he said.
A storied and pree
minent HBCU
The nearly 160-year-old Howard is one of about 100 HBCUs in the U.S., with famous alumni including former Vice President Kamala Harris and actor Chadwick Boseman.
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Howard has a 6-year graduation rate of 70% and a retention rate of 90%, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The school consistently ranks among the most prestigious private HBCUs, including as the top-ranked HBCU by Forbes.
The university costs more than $66,000 each year to attend. The median income for four-year graduates is about $73,000, according to the Education Department. Frederick said Howard has graduated more Black doctors than any other school in the country.
The “scandal,” as Christopher calls the unenrollment issue, likely will not impact Howard’s reputation as “The Mecca” of Black education in the long run.
“Howard has been the blueprint for HBCUs, graduated the best and the brightest — not saying they’re the only one who does that,” she said. “When it comes to overall impact of HBCU institutions, Howard stands at the top of that list.”
___ Tang reported from Sunnyvale, California. Williams reported from Detroit.
Mexico and the United States are racing to reach a bilateral trade deal before the U.S. midterm elections in less than eight weeks, according to six sources in both countries familiar with the talks, an effort made more urgent by the collapse of Canadian negotiations with Washington.
On September 11, 2001, I was working at the Center’s sister organization, the Council for a Livable World. Our office was in the Methodist Building across from the Supreme Court with the Capitol a very short distance away.
In those ancient times, I would watch the Senate and House on TV, and when the bells rang for a vote, walk over to the Capitol in time to talk to Members of Congress as they entered or departed from the chambers. It was a great way to talk to Members on key issues but was soon limited.
On the morning of September 11, one of our staff got a phone call from a spouse in another office telling us an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York City.
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My first reaction was to remember a small plane that crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945, resulting in 14 fatalities and significant damage to the building. I assumed that another small plane had crashed into a New York City building.
However, we were told to turn on a TV, and we saw what others around the world were seeing. One building on fire. As we watched, a second airplane crashed into the other twin tower. We had no idea that these were airplanes filled with ordinary citizens hoping to head in different state.
One of our staff broke down in tears while obviously we were all shocked and upset. We officially closed the office and all left for home — except for me.
We also heard reports of another plane crashing into a building in the area, and we did hear an explosion, which was the plane hitting the Pentagon, but at the time we couldn’t tell whether it was the Pentagon or State Department or some other building. We knew the attack was real and dangerous, and not just in New York City.
We did hear an explosion, which was the plane hitting the Pentagon, but at the time we couldn’t tell whether it was the Pentagon or State Department or some other building.
Knowing that traffic would be terrible with people clamoring to drive home in an expanded evacuation from D.C., I decided to stay in the office and wait until traffic thinned.
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Wrong choice.
Needless to say, my wife said I should head home immediately. In addition, when I peeked out one of the doors to the outside of the Methodist Building, a police officer yelled at me (and probably others) that there was another plane still in the air and it could be targeting the Capitol or the White House and to get the hell out of there.
This was the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania as the passengers took over the plane from the hijackers.
That was enough for me. I immediately headed home in, as I expected, a huge traffic mess as people headed home that took hours.
I arrived in time to see the twin towers obliterated and spent the rest of the day watching TV.
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A side note: I and others were friendly with National Security Council staffers under President Bill Clinton. These staff had received warnings that an attack on the United States was being planned and they warned the next President, George W. Bush.
The Bush administration did not listen or take any actions to prepare for an attack. The NSC staffers testified to the commission established to study the attacks and lessons learned.
One other post-9/11 development: former Senator Gary Hart of Colorado soon took over as President of the Council. I remember walking with him to the Capitol for some appointment soon after the attacks, and he was particularly appalled to see the new reality: lots of police or armed forces with machine guns now on the Capitol steps.
There also had been a bomb exploded in the Capitol before September 11 that meant much expanded security ever since.
This week pitches the D.C. area fully into festival season, with Adams Morgan Day, outdoor jazz festivals in Silver Spring and Rosslyn, outdoor art shows in Bethesda and on Capitol Hill, a four-day celebration of singer-songwriters in Annapolis, the Small Press Expo for lovers of comics and graphic novels, and the first stirrings of Oktoberfest at local breweries. Art All Night, which the District says drew more than 250,000 participants last year, returns for two nights of parties in all eight wards of the city, bringing live music, murals, DJs and pop-up fun. One of D.C.’s most adorable residents turns 5 with special treats on Saturday morning, while cyclists of all ages take to the city’s closed streets.
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