HOUSTON – (Sept. 18, 2023) – Rice University will host the Black Leadership Across Campuses (BLAC) Fall 2023 Virtual Symposium Sept. 22-23.
This two-day symposium is part of a series of conferences addressing a range of themes that explore the mission and cultural worlds framed by historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The goal is to develop and nurture strategies for fostering generations of academic leadership equipped to address issues of justice demanding attention, and to do this in ways that entail collaboration across HBCUs and predominantly white institutions .
The inaugural symposium in fall 2022 at Rice was themed “Religion and HBCUs: History, Mission and Impact.” In spring 2023, a summit on “Repairing The Breach: HBCUs, The Black Church and Social Justice Today” was held at Virginia Union University. This third symposium will be held virtually via Zoom with the theme “HBCUs and Identity Formation.”
BLAC, a joint project between Rice’s Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning and the Virginia Union University Center for the Study of HBCUs , was founded with the mission of fostering leadership across campuses with the capacity, skills and vision necessary to address the challenges of anti-Black racism and other forms of injustice. The initiative hopes to break down the divide between HBCUs and other institutions of higher learning to foster positive social change.
For more information, visit https://www.cercl.rice.edu/blac-fall-2023.