Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been among America’s most crucial institutions for improving the trajectory of Black lives and providing access to higher education for generations of Black Americans and other diverse students across the nation. Today, the 101 HBCUs recognized by The U.S. Department of Education continue to deliver on the promise of their founding, with more than 230,000 students currently enrolled. HBCUs are also among America’s most accessible campuses, with a total price tag for a college degree that averages 25% less than the cost of other comparable private schools, making higher education more accessible to more families of fewer means.
Despite this extraordinary profile, HBCUs continue to be dramatically underfunded by public investment and receive much less visibility and coverage from local media than their counterparts in Higher Education.
For the past several years, MPT has pioneered a highly successful public media celebration of the nationally designated HBCU Week, which is recognized each September, with a suite of programming and engagement activities to bring focus to the unique role and extraordinary legacy of HBCUs, alongside efforts to reach and activate new audiences for MPT on HBCU campuses across the state.
This fall marks MPT’s third season of HBCU Week on MPT featuring content both produced locally and acquired from producers exclusively about the HBCU experience. HBCU Week offers films about the under-told stories of sacrifice, courage, innovation, and hope found in the archives of these important American institutions. This year’s HBCU Week 2022 features more than 22 hours of content about HBCUs and expands its themes beyond history and education to include films on HBCU contributions to the arts, music, and sports. The campaign includes:
*Interviews with the presidents of the six Maryland-area HBCU presidents who provide an annual state of the university report about their institutions
*A virtual town-hall forum taped for TV
*Customized e-blasts sent by our partnering schools to their combined reach of their over 250,000 alumni
*Branded #HBCUWeek social media posts tagging each school featuring HBCU Week content
*A paid advertising campaign to promote HBCU Week on radio stations, cable, TV, and online platforms
The sample video in our submission is of our virtual town hall forum, HBCU Awakening and Revival, which includes national and local voices.