A Historical Mission in the Accountability Era

Racial Integration at HBCUs

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally prevented the federal government from providing funding for programs that discriminated based on race. Although the Civil Rights Act was a great victory for racial integrationists, the proportion of African American students attending HBCUs began to decline as the proportion attending PWIs increased (Hoffman, Snyder, & Sonnenberg, 1996). This change, which occurred in the late 1970s, was a direct result of integration, albeit in well-documented hostile environments. In the midst of this enrollment shift, HBCUs began to lose the lion’s share of their students who were now attracted to the pristine PWI campuses. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) civil rights activists sought to sue southern states that were operating dual systems of higher education (Egerton, 1974) in ways that continued to advantage PWIs while disadvantaging the HBCUs. This lawsuit evolved into the Adams v. Richardson case, which resulted in 19 southern and border states submitting higher education desegregation plans to the federal government’s Higher Education and Welfare department (Adams v. Richardson, 1972). Initially only eight states submitted plans that were accepted by the court, most of which left White institutions unchanged but included plans to provide scholarship funds to make Black colleges more attractive to Whites (Egerton, 1974).

In the decades that followed, James Ayers (an African American) filed a lawsuit against Governor Fordice (Mississippi) on behalf of his son, claiming that the state operated separate and unequal systems of public higher education. The case and series of appeals evolved into United States v. Fordice in 1992, in which the court ruled that the state of Mississippi was operating racially segregated systems of higher education. The decision placed additional pressure on the states involved in the Adams case to desegregate public higher education. Originally, the Mississippi courts suggested mergers between two HBCUs and two PWIs, but that decision was controversial because HBCU supporters felt that the burden to integrate was placed on its institutions (Minor, 2008b; United States v. Fordice, 1992). After many years of appeals, the case finally reached a settlement in 2002, when the Supreme Court decided against merging the institutions but instead awarded Mississippi HBCUs US$503 million (Sum, Light, & King, 2004). However, the controversy continued as a result of the stipulation that US$105 million would remain under the control of the state unless the HBCUs reached 10% “Other” race enrollment. Opponents argued that again the onus to diversify had been placed on HBCUs (Minor, 2008b).

Despite Black students’ increasing access to PWIs, in 2004 (2 years after the Fordice settlement), public HBCUs continued to educate the majority of African Americans in Mississippi. From 1984 to 2004, the proportion of White students at public HBCUs in Mississippi grew to less than 3% of the student enrollment, which was only a 1% increase (Minor, 2008b). As HBCUs seemed to be successfully educating the African American citizens of the state and because there were no policies prohibiting White students (even if the White student enrollment targets had not been reached), HBCU supporters questioned why HBCUs were being asked to increase other race enrollment to receive adequate funding and support (Hebel, 2001) whereas no similar stipulations were placed on PWIs. Citing Bell’s (1980) interest convergence theory, Gasman and Hilton (2012) argued that linking the access of needed financial resources to increases in White student enrollment at HBCUs was consistently contingent on the convergence of White and Black interests. However, the convergence of White and Black interests in policies that incentivized White student enrollment at HBCUs did not always mean that such policies achieved their intended outcomes.

After decades of court decisions, federal policies, and economic incentives to diversify student enrollment, HBCUs have gone from nearly 100% (1950) to only 76% Black in 2011 (Gasman, 2013). Despite the increased diversity that has resulted in one fourth of all HBCUs having student enrollments that are at least 20% non-Black, HBCUs remain predominately Black (Gasman, 2013; National Center for Education Statistics, 2010a). Some HBCU leaders interested in attracting Black and non-Black students argue that the preferences given to PWIs at the state level make it difficult to attract non-Black students. For example, a Maryland federal district court ruled in 2013 that program duplication in Maryland’s PWIs violated the constitutional rights of students who attend the state’s four public HBCUs (The Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education v. Maryland Higher Education Commission, 2013). As a result of the Adams v. Richardson (1972) case, the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) agreed to enhance public HBCUs’ opportunities and infrastructures and prohibit program duplication. When MHEC allowed a successful program at Morgan State University to be duplicated by a nearby PWI, the OCR filed a complaint, but ultimately the institution was able to keep the program while only enrolling out-of-state students (Maryland Higher Education Commission, 2006; Palmer et al., 2011). The OCR and the public HBCU leaders in Maryland argued that duplicate programs at nearby PWIs negatively affected HBCUs’ ability to enhance their institutional quality and attract non-Black students. In the absence of nearby PWIs, the White graduate enrollment at Maryland’s public HBCUs reached 53% in 1973; however, following the establishment of nearby PWIs and duplicate programs, enrollment dropped to just 14% in 2006 (Maryland Higher Education Commission, 2006; Palmer et al., 2011). Attempting to curtail all of the fallout resulting from external pressures to enroll White and other non-Black students made it difficult for HBCU leaders to increase the enrollment of these populations. The resulting implications were deep and wide.

Public HBCU Outcomes and Funding

Beyond what some perceive as having little diversity, Gasman (2013) noted that HBCUs are also critiqued for outcomes such as low 6-year graduation rates of 32% (private HBCUs) and 29% (public HBCUs). With average 6-year graduation rates under 40% in the 2011-2012 academic year, and comprising 2% of all institutions of higher education, HBCUs awarded more than 30,000 degrees to African American undergraduates, representing 8% of the undergraduate degrees awarded to that population (Cunningham, Park, & Engle, 2014).

Public HBCUs constitute 51% of the 101 HBCUs and more than 50% of the predominately Black student body are low income and/or first-generation college students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011; Thurgood Marshall College Fund, 2010). With a mission of serving the students least likely to access higher education, public HBCUs awarded more than 90% of the associate’s degrees, two thirds of bachelor’s degrees, and more than 80% of master’s degrees awarded by HBCUs in the 2011-2012 academic year (Gasman, 2013; Lee & Keys, 2013b). Also notable is that HBCUs produce such outcomes using what its leaders describe as limited resources. A snapshot of HBCU funding sources (see Figure 1) illustrates that private gifts constitute a small portion of public HBCUs’ institutional funds and as a result, the average endowment in 2009 was only about half (US$49 million) the national average of all public colleges and universities US$87 million; Gasman, 2013; National Center for Education Statistics, 2010a). The lack of private funding elevates the importance of federal and state support, which provides a combined 75% of all financial support received by public HBCUs.

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Figure 1.

HBCU external funding (in thousands of U.S. dollars).

Historically, HBCUs have received comparably less federal support than PWIs, but instead of steadily increasing funds to account for historical deficits, the federal government has kept HBCU funding levels stagnant while at the same time increasing the funding of institutions of higher education as a whole (see Figure 2). Although one might argue that the static funding is a result of decreased enrollment, the argument is mitigated by the fact that public HBCU enrollment increased by 7% between 1990 and 2000, and by 30% between 2000 and 2009. However, such enrollment increases did not result in increased federal funding (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010a).

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Figure 2.

Comparison of HBCU funding with Total IHE funding from 1994 through 2009 (in dollars).

Analyses of state support demonstrated similar trends with public HBCUs receiving less funding than public PWIs. In a 2008 report, Minor found that public HBCUs in southern states (including Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina) enrolled larger portions of African Americans but received a fraction of funding that the public PWIs received. In 2014, Boland and Gasman provided a follow-up to Minor’s analysis noting that these four states still provided PWIs with larger shares of the state appropriations to higher. Conversely, Boland and Gasman also noted that public HBCUs in these states received a larger percentage of spending cuts that were made between 2007 and 2012. For example, Louisiana State University, a larger public PWI, experienced a 25% decrease in state appropriations, but HBCUs Southern University and A&M College and Grambling State University received decreases of 45% and 36%, respectively. All but one of the three states in Boland and Gasman’s (2014) and Minor’s (2008a) analyses adopted a PF model and Alabama began formal discussions about adopting a PF model for allocating public higher education funds in the state.

PF Policies and HBCU Accountability

PF policies were introduced to encourage colleges and universities to focus on issues that governments and voters felt were important such as outputs and efficiency (Dougherty, Natow, Hare, Jones, & Vega, 2011; Gaither, 1997). As the costs of higher education increased in the 1980s and 1990s, so did the demand for greater proof that higher education institutions provided a high-quality education and graduation rates. As of 1994, more than one third of the states implemented PF policies that provided financial incentives for measures such as access for undergraduate students, quality in undergraduate education, national competitiveness in graduate studies and research, meeting critical state needs, and managerial efficiency and effectiveness (Ruppert, 1994). The economic crisis of the new millennium resulted in the reduction of the policies, as states did not have additional funding to provide enough incentive to affect institutional behaviors through PF policies (Burke & Modarresi, 2000; Shulock, 2011).

More recently, the popularity of PF policies has reemerged as a result of limited state resources for higher education and an increased demand for accountability for all public spending (McLendon, Hearn, & Deaton, 2006). Currently, 25 states have PF policies in place, 5 states are transitioning to PF policies, and 12 states are conducting legislative hearings determining how to design PF (Ferguson, 2014; Friedel, Thornton, D’Amico, & Katsinas, 2013). Researchers examining the PF impact suggest that the policies have had minimal and even negative impacts on retention and graduation. For example, Tandberg and Hillman (2013) found that when controlling for factors like political institutions and economic recessions, there was no statistically significant impact on the total number of associate’s and bachelor’s degrees earned in states where PF policies were introduced between 1990 and 2010. However, much of the PF impact research either incorporates or focuses exclusively on early iterations of PF, that is, PF 1.0, a financial bonus for campuses, which differs from more recent iterations of PF policies, that is, PF 2.0, which are typically larger proportions of a campus’ base funding received from the state. The assessments of PF impact are not disaggregated by institutional type, making it difficult to assess the impact on HBCUs in particular. In their assessment of state PF policy implementation at HBCUs, Jones and Witham (2012) found that their leaders described PF policy as problematic to their institutions’ historical missions to serve Black students, but encouraged a more salient conversation about collecting and using data. With the limited PF research and its impact on HBCUs, it is critical to continue examining the implications of PF policies at public HBCUs.

Data Collection

The data were collected during an on-campus visit to Smith University during fall 2012. During the visit, I collected university documents, observed campus leadership meetings, and interviewed students, staff, administrators, and faculty.

Creswell (2007) suggests that in purposeful sampling, the “inquirer selects individuals and sites for study because they can purposefully inform an understanding of the research problem and central phenomenon in the study” (p. 125). I have provided a description of each of the purposefully sampled participants (identified by pseudonyms) and their data collection activities in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Data Collection Information.

Data source			Data collection description
1. Science, technology, engineering, and math department holiday party 2. Honors Program Graduate School information session 3. Evidence team meeting (discussed retention and graduation rates) 4. Retention department meeting 5. Senior campus leaders’ meeting 6. Evidence team meeting with the provost (discussed goals for retention and graduation) 7. Cafeteria, computer lab, tutoring program, admissions office, student activities building, library (general observations)			Observations.  Written notes.  Audio recorded the evidence team meeting. All observations took place in fall 2012
8. Campus mission statement 9. Campus newspaper archives 10. Advisor position description 11. Campus advertisements and flyers 12. Academic program catalogues and info			Content analysis of the documents. Thematic codes were developed from the research questions and document content
Individual participants
Participant name	Title/major	Race/ethnicity	Gender	Year(s) at Smith
1. Joy Brown	Student: English/African American Studies Concentration	African American	Female	2
2. Steven Jones	Student: Business Administration and Marketing	African American	Male	3
3. Greg Lewis	Student: Sociology	African American	Male	3
4. Brian Thornton	Student: Undeclared	African American	Male	3
5. Kyle Brice	Student: Biology/Pre-Med	African American	Male	3
6. Nicole Hender-son	Student: Communication	African American	Female	4
7. Kenneth Moore	Student: Education	Caucasian	Male	5
8. Jeremy Jackson	Student: Recreation and Leisure Management	African American	Male	2
9. Denzel Hatcher	Faculty	African American	Male	12
10. Alisha Kline	Faculty	Caucasian/Adopted Native American	Female	13
11. Jesse Flowers	Faculty	Asian	Female	10
12. Brittany Green	Faculty	Caucasian	Female	N/A
13. Dawn Wells	Staff member/administrator	African American	Female	5
14. Frank Johnson	Staff member/administrator and former master’s student	African American	Male	2
15. Gale Stokes	Staff member/administrator	African American	Female	20+
16. Shane Patton	Staff member/administrator	Black	Male	2
17. Malcolm Brown	Staff member/administrator	Black	Male	14
18. Benjamin Jenkins	Staff member/administrator	African American/Mexican American/Native American	Male	4
19. Jeffrey Anderson	Staff member/administrator	African American	Male	20+
20. James Craft	Staff member/administrator	African American	Male	5
21. Theodore Woods	Staff member/administrator	African American	Male	4
22. Moses Todman	Staff member/administrator	Black	Male	<1
23. Candace Horne	Staff member/administrator	African American	Female	N/A
24. Michael Cole	Staff member/administrator	African American	Male	1
25. Leslie Grey	Staff member/administrator	African American	Female	2
26. Kenya Douglas	Staff member/administrator	African American	Female	N/A
27. Ronald Carpenter	State system representative	Caucasian	Male	N/A

Data Analysis

In case study data analysis, Stake (1995) suggests developing a strategy for balancing between data that reveal the uniqueness of the case and the ordinariness of the context. In addition, data analysis requires the observance of emergent themes/patterns, and also being careful to triangulate those themes to assure that the interpretation is correct (Stake, 1995). Thus, it was important to consider all of the different data points (observation, interview, and secondary data and document analysis) when conducting and analyzing the case study data. The first step in the data analysis process was examining the institutional documents and archival data using content analysis strategies. Krippendorff (1980) suggests that before conducting a content analysis, the content must be defined in terms of what data will be analyzed and the boundaries of the analysis. For the current study, the unit of analysis included the words, phrases, and overall messages in each written statement of the documents. After the areas of analysis were defined, the text was condensed into categories and meaning was extracted using coding techniques (Stemler, 2001). In addition, the ideas that emerged from the thematic analysis were interpreted using CRT to identify and understand the relevancy of issues of race, power, resources, and policy.

The remaining data that included the observations, interviews, and institutional data were organized using an electronic folder system (Stake, 1995). Next, reading and memoing were applied to the interviews and field notes. I began creating memos for the interviews and observations immediately after they were conducted using reflective prompts developed from the guiding literature and theoretical framework (CRT). For example, after evidence team meetings, I would respond to prompts that asked questions such as the following: What issues of individuals’ race or experiences with racism were raised? Who brought them up? What was said? How did the group react? What issues surrounding the relationship with the state system of higher education were raised? Who brought them up? What was said? How did the group react?

The following coil, classifying and interpreting, involved making sense of the data. Data were interpreted using an adapted version of Boyatzis’s (1998) four stages of thematic analysis to obtain the details extracted from codes and categories that help to explain how phenomena occur. The first two stages involved identifying codable moments in the documents, field notes, and interview transcripts, assigning initial codes, and collapsing these into more refined consistent codes. Some of the codes included “personable/warm climate,” “administrator fatigue,” and “critiques of race based performance funding.” The collapsed codes were placed into categories. Some of the categories were “relationships with accountability systems,” “addressing retention/graduation,” and “the role of race and culture.” The final stage included creating themes that “describe, organize, and interpret aspects of the phenomenon” (Boyatzis, 1998, p. 4).

The State System of Higher Education Versus Smith University

When preliminary observations of Smith University began, it was evident in the participants’ protective postures that there was a complicated history between the school and the state system. In the first observed meeting, the participants shared stories of how the state system of higher education had historically underfunded the university and removed stellar academic and extracurricular programs to undermine the university. Moses, a fairly new Smith University staff member and administrator explained, “I think there’s a disconnect. I think there’s frustration on both sides. It’s kind of like they’re speaking German and we’re speaking French.”

When I asked participants why they thought the state system of higher education would not provide support to Smith University, they explained that it was because of race that they were being targeted and their history of limited resources had provided them with limited ammunition to fight back. The participants explained that the state system of higher education uses Smith University’s vulnerability, which results from its limited resources, as a means to control it. Most public institutions of higher education are dependent on their states for support, but they may have other resources to draw on like endowments, and may also not have the history of underfunding that Smith has experienced, thus making Smith more reliant on the state’s economic support than other public universities. Furthermore, like many public HBCUs, over 75% of Smith students are Pell recipients, hence, serving such a large proportion of low-income students means that other sources of revenue like tuition increases are especially detrimental at Smith University, making economic support from the state even more important. This overreliance on the state as its primary source of support means that Smith has to do “whatever the state says,” as Frank, a staff member/administrator, stated.

Frank described the result of the tension between the directions of the state system of higher education and Smith University as a “double consciousness” in which Smith University is “serving two masters.” Frank explained that those masters are “their mission and legacy versus what the state will allow them to do.” DuBois’s (1953) concept of double consciousness suggests that Black individuals are faced with the challenge of living in a duality of existence that includes the awareness of being Black through their own lens and also seeing self through the lens of the larger society that views Black individuals as “Other.” Like DuBois’s explanation of the experience of Black individuals, Smith University also faces the challenge of existing as a Black institution while existing within a state system of higher education where it is the “Other,” or what the state system representative has described as “an outlier.” The result is what Frank describes as a

half-ass school. You can’t go full either way. It just leaves you looking around like who is in power here? Nobody knows and everybody kicks the bucket to another department and everybody kicks it to another office and you email the president and the president is going to say well the state did this . . . you don’t know what you can do.

The participants explained that the opposition to Smith University receiving financial or political support from the state system of higher education is less about fiscal justification and more an issue of institutional racism. Before getting into the specifics of the policy and what they did or did not like about it, some argued that the policy was a reflection of the state system’s almost paternalistic attitude toward Smith University. One Smith University student, Nicole, described the state system of higher education as

the overbearing parents [saying] this is what I want for you, Smith, this is who I want you to date. This is who I want you to bring into your institution and you’re gonna change that person to make them find what you want them to have.

Frank explained that their “relationship with the state is real oppressive so this is what the state says so this is what we’ve got to do.” Frank goes on to question how the state’s imperatives will affect Smith’s “mission” of “giving that student who doesn’t have a chance, a chance.”

In Smith’s case, the “student who does not have a chance” and who obtains a chance at Smith is typically Black, thus racializing the state’s perceived opposition to Smith’s autonomy and mission.

Moses, a Smith University staff member and administrator, explained that

overt racism is always hard to prove . . . I think there may be an underlying and underpinning insensitivity . . . There are some folks at the state level that really don’t have the confidence in the way that this university is operated or run. They feel as though we are really just focused on a small target of the population, which is primarily African Americans.

Moses attributed the tensions between Smith University and the state system of higher education to “insensitivity,” “a lack of confidence,” and the school’s small focus on African Americans, but some participants went even further to argue that some acts of the state system were in fact racist.

Malcolm, another Smith University staff member and administrator, explained that the state system of higher education appointed a staff member/administrator to the Smith University financial aid office, causing many challenges that resulted in some eligible students losing their financial aid. Malcolm suggested,

[The state system] appointed a state person to [Smith] . . . which is the only Historically Black College in the state system. Now you know with Historically Black Colleges, the majority of the students need some type of financial assistance . . . was it a plan? Was it constructed? Because there’s no way you can come from the state and be a specialist and come in and mess it up.

When asked about the relationship between Smith University and the state system of higher education, Shirley, a Smith staff member and administrator, responded, “I find out based on how small our budgets are.” Shirley goes on to explain that there was a time that the state “didn’t want [Smith] to be here,” and thus they “would have a deficit.”

Some participants noted the state system of higher education’s refusal to provide adequate funding as an act of racism, referring to the retrieval of owed funds through the previously mentioned US$15 million lawsuit as “reparations.” Malcolm explained that in the past Smith University had to sue for funding and that

it was kind of a shame that we had to sue. The new residential hall that we have . . . that was due to reparations because our students had wrote . . . over several years stating that all the other schools in the state system had new facilities and we had none so how do you expect for us to be able to compete? It started to become a litigation issue as far as discrimination.

Malcolm goes on to explain that the only reason the state has not closed Smith University is because it would receive public opposition and Smith provides a space to “place [their] minorities in the state. If they are not doing what they are supposed to in other places, you can still increase your numbers using [Smith] University.” These issues of racism color the relationship between Smith University and the state system of higher education, thus shaping participants’ perspectives on the PF policy.

PF and Smith University

The PF policy at Smith University and the other campuses in the state system was first enacted in 2003 with the aim to address educational achievement, the application of knowledge, public service, inclusiveness, and stewardship. The first phase of the policy was credited by the state system of higher education with contributing to increases in the 4-year graduation rates and second-year persistence rates, and an increase in the number of faculty with terminal degrees. The most recent version of the policy calls for a small, but substantial, percentage of the state’s annual appropriations to its institutions to be based on performance measures reflecting state priorities on degree completion and research productivity. The PF model also holds institutions accountable for improving equity in enrollment and educational outcomes among racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

Smith University is being evaluated on five mandatory and five optional performance measures. The state system of higher education designed and selected the five mandatory measures, and Smith University selected five from a list of 22 optional measures, provided by the state system of higher education. The mandatory performance measures for Smith University include the number of degrees conferred, reduction in achievement and access gaps, increased faculty diversity, and private support. The optional indicators for Smith University include student persistence, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and health profession degree recipients, closing the access and achievement gaps for transfer students, and instructional productivity.

The PF policy adjusts for Smith University’s unique status as an HBCU in two ways. First, the other institutions in the state system were benchmarked against the average of all public master’s institutions, but to determine the target goals for Smith University, the state system of higher education used the average of the particular outcome for all public master’s HBCUs, ² and set that average as the goal for Smith University to achieve within 5 years. For example, for the “degrees conferred” performance measure, Smith University is being challenged by the state system to increase the percentage of baccalaureate degrees awarded per full-time enrollment (FTE). The average for all public master’s level HBCUs is 12.13%. Thus, the goal for Smith University is to increase the percentage of baccalaureate degrees awarded per FTE from its 2009/2010 percentage of 11.64% to the public master’s level HBCU average of 12.13%.

Second, the PF policy adjusts for Smith University’s unique HBCU status in the way it conceptualizes the term underrepresented minority (URM). For all of the other institutions in the state system of higher education, which are PWIs, the term URM refers to each institution’s Black, Latino, and Native American student populations. The state system of higher education has classified the URM students at Smith University as all non-Black students. On indicators pertaining to the enrollment and success of URM students, Smith University’s PF policy inverts the accountability measures for the system’s historically Black university. Whereas PWIs are required to close gaps in access and success for students from URM groups, Smith University is required to close gaps for non-Black students. A sample of how this URM concept is applied to a performance measure for Smith University is provided in Table 2. The sample demonstrates that PWIs in the state system are being held accountable for closing the gap between the percentage of Black, Latino, and Native American students in the state’s high school graduate population (18%) and the percentage of these URM students in their freshmen population (16%). However, Smith University is responsible for closing the gaps in access between the average percentage of non-Black students enrolled at public master’s level HBCUs (16%) and the percentage of non-Black students in their freshmen population (2%).

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Table 2.

PF Sample Measure: Closing the Access Gap for URM Students.

University	Reference group	State high school graduates % URM	Total incoming freshmen	No. of URM students	% of URM	Gap	Goal: Reduce gap by ½
Smith University	Non-Black	16	1,169	22	2	13.6	6.81
Predominately White university	URM	18	2,056	329	16	2.0	1.0

Note. PF = performance funding; URM = underrepresented minority.

Ronald, the state system of higher education representative, while speaking about how the “special adjustments” for Smith University were determined, noted that the policy design was based on recommendations from a multi-campus committee. He explained that there were no representatives from Smith University who were selected to serve on the multi-campus committee that helped develop the state PF policy. Ronald confirmed that there were other campuses besides Smith University that were not represented on the committee as well. He explained that they “put together a committee of people who knew the issues and problems with the old system . . . expertise was how you got on the committee.” He also suggested that Smith University’s status as an HBCU “was in our mind as we did this; that was a design piece that we incorporated.” However, when asked about his expertise to address Smith University, which he described as an “outlier,” he confirmed that he is “not a great study of” or expert of HBCUs. The lack of HBCU expertise or representation on a committee that was making decisions on how an HBCU should perform and receive funding demonstrates the potential for the development of indicators that may not be applicable in the HBCU context.

HBCU PF Design Challenges

Throughout the higher education accountability movement that began in Europe and the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there have been concerns about (a) states’ abilities to “measure the unmeasurable” (Gaither, Nedwek, & Neal, 1994, p. 7), (b) the tension between policy makers’ desires to measure efficiency and productivity, and practitioners’ interest in measures that “reflect the quality of the educational experience in a manner that elucidates their own specific institution mission” (Alexander, 2000, p. 426), (c) and the evolution of the state’s relationship with higher education from authoritative oversight to active involvement in financial planning and decision making (Wellman, 2001).

The state system of higher education attempted to account for Smith and other campuses’ uniqueness by allowing them to select from a list of 22 optional measures. The challenge is that even among the optional indicators, there is a prescribed focus on institutional capacity and non-Black students. Improving performance on indicators such as study abroad, individual donor support, and facilities investment would be difficult for a low-resource institution like Smith University. Furthermore, closing the access (enrollment) and achievement gaps for transfer students requires Smith University to close the “gap” between the percentage of non-Black transfer students enrolled at public master’s HBCUs and the percentage of non-Black transfer students enrolled at Smith University. Thus, despite Smith University’s efforts to account for institutional differences, the PF policy at Smith University encourages the institution to either improve the institutional capacity using resources it may not have or challenge its historical mission by focusing on non-Black students.

Because student outcomes have such a direct impact on institutional funding, it is possible that the university may attempt commonly used strategies to improve student outcomes, such as becoming more selective or broadening applicant pools. Both of these, however, can be problematic for niche institutions like public HBCUs, which have traditionally served as a point of access to higher education for Black students (Minor, 2004). It is not to assume that Smith University will be able to easily attract more academically competitive students, but that it may use its limited resources to try to cater to the desired student populations. For example, it could cater toward a more academically competitive student body by offering more academically challenging courses, but limited resources would require the institution to eliminate needed developmental education courses. ³ In addition, regardless of what group of students the institution aims to attract, strategies such as offering scholarships, increasing programs, and attracting competitive faculty require additional resources that many low-resourced, non-selective, public HBCUs do not have. Last, much of the literature on how HBCUs are responding to PF policies comes from media and non-academic, non-scholarly resources; further empirical research and inquiry into the study of how HBCUs foster student success, respond to accountability pressures, and make improvement is necessary before mandating specific performance measures.

Next Steps for HBCU PF Policy Design

Taking into consideration what was learned about Smith University through this case study, I will recommend next steps for designing applicable measures for Smith University’s state system of higher education as well as others in states like Maryland, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina that have public HBCUs that are part of their state system of higher education. First, policy makers should engage HBCU leaders and experts during the policy development process. The disconnect between policy goals and campus goals and the lack of buy-in from the Smith University leaders seemed to stem from the lack of HBCU expertise and presence during the policy development process. Thus, it would be helpful to include HBCU leaders and experts on any assembled committee or team that will make PF policy recommendations and to solicit input and feedback via surveys and town hall style meetings from all institutional members before the policy is developed and enacted.

Second, policy makers should take steps to guard against creating unintended perverse effects from policies that fail to take into account contextual differences by continually refining PF metrics based on what is learned about the intended and unintended consequences of the policy. The Smith University community expressed great concern over how the institution “could” be negatively affected by the policy; thus, they could be reassured by knowledge that the state will monitor unintended outcomes. One way to get an idea of the potential unintended outcomes is to create a committee of representatives from each of the campuses affected by the policy to discuss policy understanding, reception, and impact on campuses. Furthermore, states should conduct quantitative analyses of potential economic and racial stratification and shifts in student populations at their campuses.

Third, metrics should be responsive to input factors. Many HBCUs, like Smith University, aim to provide access to college for students who are least likely to enroll at highly selective institutions. If an HBCU has an open-admissions policy that would allow the admission of academically underprepared students, then applicable output indicators would focus on how effective the institution was in educating that particular population of students. Potential output indicators for open-admission and less selective HBCUs include time from developmental education course to credit-bearing course completion and an 8-year graduation rate. Policy makers can look to campus missions to gain understanding of who the target “inputs” are and how to assess how effective the institution is at educating them. For example, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education has articulated a goal to “produce the best-educated citizenry and workforce in the nation” (Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, 2013). Thus, the department has created a study group to develop strategies for measuring engaged citizenship, demonstrating a unique departure from standard PF policies. This means that there could be measures that are tailored to the specific missions of HBCUs. For example, if an HBCU has a specific goal of educating a “diverse student population” or “developing minority leaders,” PF policies should include measures like participation in national leadership and service organizations like the Peace Corps, or the proportion of registered voters on a campus.

There could also be a consideration of metrics that capture some of the “special” or “unique” benefits or characteristics of HBCUs. If there are advantages for students of color attending HBCUs beyond enrollment and student demographics, those concepts are worth exploring for their potential to be translated into measures or evidence of HBCU success. For example, a few states have included output measures related to job placement, readiness, and success as measured by employment rates and earnings. McMickens’s (2012) concept of “racism readiness” is HBCU specific and could be included as a sub measure of job readiness. McMickens’s study proposed that HBCUs had prepared students for encountering racism in the post-graduate environment, providing some possible explanation for the post-graduate success rates of HBCU graduates. ⁴ Racism readiness is an example of something that HBCUs can provide to their students that can lead to desired outcomes such as earnings and postbaccalaureate degree attainment. Hence, racism readiness could be an ideal measure of institutional performance that is particular to the HBCU context, but is also linked to desired student outcomes.

Last, it is critical to address data capacity before implementing the policy. During the study, Smith University had recently addressed vacancies in its institutional research office and was in the process of updating the data processes to help correct errors in the reporting of its racial demographics that included an inability to identify international students and an overestimation of racially unknown students. This is important because the baseline data and goals had already been set by the state using the data with errors. Although these institutional research issues were being addressed at the time of the study, it was after the policy and subsequent goals were defined. The effectiveness of PF policies depends on campuses’ ability to accurately report data back to the state higher education governing bodies; hence, data capacity is critical to campus and policy effectiveness and success. Issues like small enrollments, endowments, and historical financial neglect can make items like a cutting edge data system, fully staffed institutional research and assessment offices, and even a wireless internet system difficult to finance. It is important that states with HBCUs have incentives to support data and technological infrastructure development as data capacity will be a critical component of PF policy success. This is not meant to broadly imply that HBCUs do not collect and report data efficiently, but rather to suggest that states conduct a survey to assess campus data capacity and needs prior to policy implementation to ensure that all campuses in the state have equitable opportunities to obtain PF.