Howard University nursing students walked out of class last Thursday, protesting conditions they say are so bad that they will graduate this spring without knowing how to administer an IV because the school lacks the equipment to teach them. So far, the administration's response--it offered to readminister a test for which students said they weren't prepared--has not satisfied them. "They are not fixing our problem," Howard's senior class president, a nursing major, told the Hilltop. "They are putting a band-aid on metastasized cancer." A group of seniors even told juniors they should transfer from the college while they can.
According to the Hilltop, 417 nursing students share just three small physical labs and one 14-computer technology lab. Howard's was one of the first black nursing programs in the country. One student told the paper she would hate to see that history die, "but sometimes you have to destroy and rebuild."
In the late 1990's while I was a grad student at Catholic University in D.C., Howard was attempting to get grad students from other area universities to teach intro political science courses. Almost everyone was interested. The thing was they weren't going to PAY anyone for teaching them. Almost everyone quickly became uninterested. I remember thinking the whole episode was bizarre, but now maybe it is making some sort of sense.
Among the nation's historically black colleges and universities Howard University is one of the best known names. If they are having dire financial difficulties (which seems likely given the story here), one wonders how these institutions are doing as a whole.
Hopefully Howard is the exception rather than the rule.
1 comment:
Nope it's the rule. I go to Morehouse, another black college riding mediocre under it's larger than reality reputation. And our endowment is less than half that of Howard, so you can only imagine.
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