News

While most historically Black colleges and universities in North Carolina are welcoming students back to campus this month, some small, private institutions are offering only virtual instruction this fall. Host Leoneda Inge talks with Suzanne Walsh, president of Bennett College in Greensboro, about the college’s decision to go online this semester.   We also hear Durham-based jazz musician Brian Horton perform a unique rendition of the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the Black national anthem. Click here to listen — The original news story can be found on wunc.org.

While most of North Carolina’s colleges and universities zigged toward reopening their campuses this month, Bennett College zagged toward a virtual fall semester. Bennett in July was the first N.C. school to announce that it will offer only remote classes during the upcoming fall semester because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, three other N.C. private schools have said they will be online-only this fall: Johnson C. Smith and Queens universities in Charlotte and Salem College in Winston-Salem. A fifth, Mars Hill University north of Asheville, said last week it will start the fall semester online but hopes to move to …

Bennett College is launching alternative systems to deliver classes and programs for the Fall semester.  After careful research, analysis and consideration, we have made a decision to operate remotely for the Fall semester. This was a data-driven decision, but one that was guided by principles that place the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff above everything else. We did not come to this decision lightly. The Senior Leadership Team and Board of Directors reviewed the growing body of research showing that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately negative impact on Black women. As a Black women’s …

On the first day that college applications opened last August, Daja Snipes applied to Clemson University. The big South Carolina public university had been her first choice for months. She was big on school pride and sports at the time, and she fell in love with the campus when she visited. She did apply to another school: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historically black university about an hour from home. But it was her “fallback,” she said. “It was last on my list.” As her senior year went on, though, Snipes kept hearing from the staff and …

Earlier this month, Carmesha Blackmon ’22 visited the International Civil Rights Center & Museum amid the protests that transpired in downtown Greensboro. Blackmon interviews La’ Tonya Wiley, a Senior Interpreter at the museum, about the connection between current activism and the 1960s Sit-In Movement.