PROVIDENCE – Elfred A. Pinkard, who has been a longtime educator at historically Black colleges and universities, will become Brown University’s first-ever HBCU presidential fellow on July 1.
Pinkard is retiring this spring as president of Wilberforce University in Ohio, which, according to Brown, is the country’s oldest private HBCU.
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The Ivy League institution says Pinkard was appointed as a fellow to help strengthen efforts and expand Brown’s relationships with other such colleges and universities.
Brown says bringing Pinkard aboard is intended to create a consortium of partner schools, with goals of encouraging collaborative research, promoting faculty development, providing student exchange opportunities and increasing the number of HBCU undergraduates attending graduate school.
With Pinkard’s appointment, the university also hopes to build infrastructure capacity at participating HBCUs, and inspiring leadership in higher education and policy development, Brown said.
“HBCUs are a special sector in the unique mosaic of American higher education,” Pinkard said in a statement. “But the historical record is replete with examples of uneven resources, a challenging relationship with the federal government, and the inability of many HBCUs to get before the philanthropic community to request the kind of support that builds financial strength. And yet HBCUs have persisted and been successful in graduating very impactful alumni.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
