The current text of the proposed renewal of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as proposed and agreed to by both houses of the US Congress, dated November 9, 2007.

It is important to note that this version does not include the additional funding for the HBCU Capital Financing Program or the funding ceiling proposals of the US House of Representatives, to which, at this date, the US Senate has not agreed to.

This bill has been due for renewal since 2003 (the law requires that it must be updated, or that effort must be made to renew it every five years).

Pages 198-209 specifically pertain to matters concerning Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), referred in the text of the bill as Predominantly Black Institutions (PBI).

To qualify as a PBI under the Higher Education Act, a college or university must have no less than 1,000 undergraduate students, have at least 40 percent of such students be US Citizens of African-American decent, and have at least fifty (50) percent of all undergraduates enrolled at the institution be either low-income individuals ( details pending), or first-generation college students.

This bill is relevant to my paper in that it demonstrates an active attempt to provide funding for HBCUs through increased federal grants.  While this is not a long-term solution, it is very likely that the bill will be passed in the near future -- for this reason, it is important that I examine the primary text as part of my research.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (term taken from article), or HBCUs, have often struggled to close the Digital Divide in their institutions. Certain schools, such as Elizabeth City State University, and Norfolk State University, have been able to bridge the gap in technology commonly found between HBCUs and their historically White peers through grants and infrastructural changes.

Financial support from outside entities, both private and public, has been critical in raising funds for technology integration on these campuses. Elizabeth City State University has found the greatest success with governmental partnerships, raising nearly 10 Million dollars (US) from entities such as the US Navy and NASA. Norfolk State, which, as a whole has been financially "stagnant or slightly declining," was able to free up additional funding by laying off 20 percent of their IT support personnel and redirecting the funds formerly used to pay those employees' salaries towards the technological infrastructure of the university. While this adds a needed jolt to the system, it is not a viable long-term development strategy.

Administrators at HBCUs are optimistic about the pending reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Recently proposed changes to the act include a Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) Technology Grant Program, specifically designed to provide upgrades to technological infrastucture, hardware, software, and both traditional and wireless networking capabilities. The current version of the reauthorization bill recommends 250 million dollars (US) in annual funding for the technological needs of MSIs. While passage of the renewal is promised in the near future, there is currently disagreement as to what governmental entity will manage the program. Currently, the US Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Education are all vying for the administrative duties.

It is clear that there is a great need for infrastructral investment, as well as subsidies for student ownership of computer resources. ; in a report written by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) in 2000 (prepared for the US Department of Commerce), fewer than 25 percent of students at HBCUs were found to own their own computer. As a result, students were often found having to wait hours to gain access to university-owned computers (at the library, or in a lab). In a 2007 NAFEO study, 22.5 percent were found to have a "technology loan program" for their students, and only 15 percent were found to offer "subsidies, discounts or other financial incentives to assist students with computer purchases."

Ultimately, it will require a symbiotic relationship between HBCUs and the Federal Government to develop the needed resources fto bridge the Digital Divide. Some examples of this have already florished -- in 2006, Hampton University received funding from the Department of Homeland Security to develop their information technology infrastructure. In turn, they developed "a software visualization program that enables emergency responders to gain access to a visual rendering of large building interiors."

According to the author, these sorts of parnerships will help provide a level of sustainable growth for HBCUs, while ensuring that the governmental coffers that provide these needed technology grants will not run dry.

This article is relevant to my paper in that it provides two specific solutions towards narrowing the digital divide betwen HBCUs and their traditionally white counterparts.  In particular, Hampton University's program is interesting to me, as it opens the door for that institution to eligible for Bayh/Dole Act-related contracts in the future.

Outlines the specific proposals in the current version of the proposed 2008 Higher Education Act renewal (orig. passed 1968, last renewed in 1998).

There are two different versions of the bill, one in the US House of Representatives, and one in the US Senate.

The Senate bill was passed in that chamber in 2007 and proposes an annual grant of 250 million dollars (US) for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for technology development, to be administrated by the US Department of Education. The second version of the bill, currently in session at in the House of Representatives, also proposes an annual stipend of 250 million dollars (US), but requests that the administrative duties be taken care of by the US Department of Commerce. Negotiations are ongoing between the two chambers to decide this sticking point, although members of both chambers are optimistic that a compromise can be achieved.

In addition to providing funding specifically aimed at technological improvement, the House bill provides additional funding for overall infrastructural investment, through the HBCU Capital Financing Program. This program, which offers governmental loans to the administrations of HBCUs, is instrumental in developing the overall resources of these universities, as these schools often struggle to develop their endowments and have smaller yields from their capital campaigns. The House bill proposes increasing the annual funding of the CFP from 375 million dollars (US) to 1.1 billion dollars (US).

Additional proposals in the House bill include an increase in the general federal HBCU undergraduate and graduate funding ceiling, which determines the limit that the government may allocate to these programs (an appropriations process determines the actual funds provided). Proponents of these two additional attachments point to the fact that the Bush administration has signaled that they will cut the net funding for HBCUs in the 2009 budget. These attachments are designed to block the administration from implementing that plan.

The bill is not exclusively aimed at HBCUs. Some parts, in fact, are aimed specifically at monitoring the activities of particularly affluent schools. Some points already agreed upon by both chambers in regards to this include an annual report from all US accredited universities in regards to their endowments, and in regards to what measures they are taking to reduce the cost of tuition and other fees to their student bodies. An earlier version of the bill would have required universities to spend at least five (5) percent of their endowments, per annum, towards alleviating the burden of costs to their students, but this was removed after strenuous objection from several major universities.

In addition, the bill requires any university that raises the price of its tuition to provide a detailed report to the Department of Education providing the details and need for such an increase. It is the hope, realistic or not, of the Congress at large that this will help dissuade universities from implementing unneccesary tuition hikes upon their students.

This article is relevant to my paper in that it outlines one specific approach towards solving the digital divide between HBCUs and their white counterparts. While the proposed changes to the bill do not create a permanent solution to lessen the disparity between these institutions (for instance, it does not contain plans to create a self-generating stream of revenue for these colleges and universities), it does provide a much needed injection of funds into the HBCU community, and could potentially provide the seed money to jump-start more long-term programs.

A 2000 study from the Journal of Black Studies (JBS), examining the conditions of software-based technology use by faculty at one (anonymous) mid-sized, southern Historically Black College and/or University (HBCU). The study also cites data from a study conducted by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) in 2000. The NAFEO study, along with this one, reveals a notable gap between the technological resources available to students at HBCUs and those available to their historically-white counterparts. For specifics regarding the NAFEO's findings, please see my citation "Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Assessment of Networking and Connectivity"

The JBS study focuses primarily on the use of software applications by faculty, and how they are implemented by those professors into their curriculum. While basic computer competency skills, such as facility with the Windows operating system (90.3% of responders claimed to use it on a regular basis) and use of Microsoft Word (83% of responders), were relatively high, other software, such as Microsoft Excel (43.9% of responders), and PowerPoint (26.9% of responders), seem surprisingly low. In terms of web-based software, e-mail (87.8% of responders) and general internet use (80.5% of responders) were again high, but education-based software such as Blackboard (24.4% of responders) was minimal at best.

The study finds that this is, largely, an infrastructural and financial problem. Over 50% of the faculty members at the university were
working with computers that met just minimal standards, and, therefore, could not run all software applications available to them. In some cases, the technology itself was restricted -- the University had neglected to purchase a "campus-wide" license for the Blackboard software, and, as a result, not all faculty who desired to use it had access. It is telling that while only 24.4% of responders actually used Blackboard, 73.2% claimed to be familiar with and interested in using the software, if and when a functional license for it was granted to them. Another element that slowed the growth of technology at this school was that there was no full-time technology-development personnel on staff at the university to train faculty members software usage. As a result, the faculty members relied on "word-of-mouth" and each other's assistance to learn how to use new software.

(NOTE: Three years after the study was conducted, in 2003, a follow-up was performed. Data relevant to this shall appear in my paper, but has been omitted for length here.)

In terms of the relevance to my paper, having a specific case study, observing the statistics of a single school, is key to helping me focus my research and put it into real-life, applicable terms. The statistics support the evidence of a significant digital divide in terms of infrastructure, and, furthermore, the limitations regarding the faculty's use and familiarity with software and web-based applications, even when proper computing resources are available. I do have one or two concerns. The data that appears in this study was largely collected in 2000 -- because this data is eight years old, and the field of relevance (the development of technological resources on the campuses of HBCUs) is a rapidly changing one, I fear that the actual statistics today, in 2008, may be significantly different. Nevertheless, this journal article was published in 2006, and I have full confidence that, if these researchers found the data still relevant only two years ago, then the accuracy of it (or at least the disparity shown) has not depreciated much in the time that has elapsed.