I have a soft spot in my heart for HBCUs.
Don't know that that means?
It stands for Historically Black College and Universities.
I know because I spent the first two years of my college career attending classes at Lincoln University.
Every time I speak to a group of young people, I mention several seminal events that shaped my life. The two years I spent at Lincoln University are one of them.
When I tell people I attended Lincoln, I often notice a quizzical look on their face, especially among older folks. The kids don't always get it. Give them a few years, they will.
I know these people are dying to ask me a question, so I just kind of wait and let them squirm a bit.
So why do you think some people might think it maybe a bit odd for me to have attended Lincoln University?
That's easy. Lincoln is one of the nation's oldest, most renowned, most prestigious institutions of higher learning dedicated to the education of African-American students.
In other words, an HBCU.
So why was that so important to me?
I'll tell you exactly why.
I always ask the groups I'm addressing to look around the room and tell me what they see. At first they don't get it. Most of the time, they see what I saw just about every day growing up in the little town of Oxford, Pa., just a couple miles down Route 1 from the Lincoln campus.
In other words, they see a lot of faces that look just like mine.
White.
Yes, I had black friends when I was a kid. But for the most part, I was always part of the majority, never a minority.
Then one day I walked into a classroom at Lincoln University, sat down, looked around and realized that mine was the only white face in that room.
It's an eye-opening experience.
I urge the young people I talk to that if they ever get the opportunity to have that experience - and they should - they should reach out and grab it with both hands.
To this day I use the lessons and value the experience I had at Lincoln University. About how to treat people and how you would like to be treated.
I believe society as a whole would be light years ahead of where we are now - fighting the same old fights - if everyone could have even a small taste of that minority experience.
I bring this up now not because of Lincoln, but because of another nearby HBCU, Cheyney University.
There was always a friendly competition among the two schools as to which was actually the nation's oldest black university.
Cheyney has fallen on hard times. Enrollment has imploded, now with just a bit more than 400 students on the sprawling campus that straddles the Delaware and Chester County border.
The school has perennial money problems. Its accreditation was in danger.
They needed a turnaround specialist.
They got the right guy.
Last week President Aaron Walton announced a program called "Resurgence" meant put the struggling school back on an even keel. That includes what many would have considered a miracle just a year or so ago. Walton believes the school will finish the fiscal year with a balanced budget. Of course, that depends on $4 million in donations.
Walton was wise enough to realize the school and its alumni was not going to be able to do this alone. He's forming partnership with a West Chester tech firm, which will relocated its headquarters on the campus.
He's also working with Thomas Jefferson University and Starbucks.
Next fall's enrollment looks to have a healthy increase, with 2,700 students seeking admission, up 30 percent from the year before. The school plans to admit half of those.
I talked about the situation at Cheyney on Sunday's editorial page.
I hope the rivalry between Cheyney and Lincoln goes on for decades. We need these institutions.
Because too often when we view society and the immense problems we face, we only discuss these problems with people who look like the image in the mirror.
The world is bigger than that. The problems are more complex. More diverse, you might say.
And they require all voices - all faces - to be heard. Not just those that look like ours.
I know. Don't believe it? Spend a couple of years sitting in a classroom at Lincoln or Cheyney.
I highly recommend it.
Comments