Here is the actual executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/28/presidential-executive-order-white-house-initiative-promote-excellence
The existing White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities is described at https://sites.ed.gov/whhbcu/ .
Implications?
Poring over the data. Looks like the target numbers needed for the HBCUs to meet the 2020 goals of degrees awarded will be next to impossible to meet, as the gap between the numbers awarded presently and the yearly rate of growth identified as of 2009-2010 would still leave an incredible gap. However, it is exciting to see that there may be an increased effort made to identify sources of funding and to improve the level and type of press and communication about what the HBCU group of schools offer.
Think I’m looking at that correctly.
Money undoubtedly will help, but HBCUs have a history of doing other things to produce excellent graduates. The undergraduate business major at Florida A&M typically had the big banks and financial firms making the pilgrimage to campus to recruit FAMU kids. The STEM at North Carolina A&T is very good, despite being in the shadow of NC State just down the highway. The core curriculum at NC Central University has been called by some academicians as the best in the UNC system. Let’s emulate programs like these.
Executive Orders are unfunded. All the things ordered will have to be funded by Dept of Educ funds, so that means funds will need to be pulled from other programs or studies.
I am impressed with the spelling and grammar. Who’d have thunk it?