Fact Checking the Myths of Silicon Valley

Last update:  5/31/18

Continuous repetition and elaboration convert tall tales into myths. Three years ago Silicon Valley's leaders furrowed their brows over "pipelines"; recently they have been nodding sagely about "leaky pipelines." And next year, will they be singing their own praises as the "plumbers" who are best suited to fix the "leaky pipelines" in some distant future???

Directory of HBCU Computer and Information Sciences -- Version 1.8b

This directory has been replaced by Version 2.0

Directory of HBCU Computer Science Programs -- Version 1.8a

Last update: Tuesday 2/10/15 @ 2:14 pm

The following table is version 1.8A of a directory of the degrees offered by 33 HBCUs in "Computer Science" in the 2012/2013 academic year, the most recent year for which this data is available. The table also shows the number of students who graduated from  programs in 2012/13. The data was extracted from the online IPEDS Data Center on February 2, 2015. The DLL will produce a report that analyzes this data by COB Friday 2/20/15.

Directory of HBCU Computer Science Programs -- 1.7 forthcoming

Last update: Thursday 1/29/15 @ 9:07 pm

Version 1.7A can be found ==> HERE

"Weekly Dozens" Magazine -- Saturday 4/19/14

Last updated: Sunday 4/20/14 @ 5:41 pm

Below find links to the Digital Learning Lab's "Dozens" of favorite academic news items posted by HBCU and other media on Twitter about HBCUs' teaching, research, and community service for the week ending Saturday 4/19/14 ... in chronological order from latest to earliest ... Links to previous editions of the Dozens can be found here ==> Back issues ... Note that back issues can be searched for old tweets.

Virtual Groups at Virtual HBCUs Developing Mobile Applications in Virtual Labs

Last updated: Thursday 10/31/13 @ 7:26 am

By convening the HBCU Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley (at Stanford University, 10/30/13 to 11/1/13), UNCF has proclaimed a game changing challenge for the HBCU community. Of course we won't know how well our community rose to this challenge until a few years have passed, i.e., until we witness the emergence of a wave of black entrepreneurs whose success can be traced back to the ideas and collaborations that emerge from this meeting.  

Notes on the HBCU Week Conference 2013

Last updated: Sunday 9/29/13 @ 12:39 am

This year's HBCU Week conference sponsored by the White House Initiative on HBCUs was held on Thursday 9/26/13 and Friday 9/27/13 at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Unlike last year, there was no dinner session at the end of the first day, so no chance to hear an inspiring after-dinner speaker, like last year's speaker, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III.

Commencement Address 2012

Today, May 12, 2012, was Commencement Day at Howard University, my long-time employer ... and at A&T, Winston-Salem, Tuskegee, Virginia Union, and Claflin to name a few other HBCUs. So I got to thinking, "What would I say to the happy young graduates if I were asked to give the commencement address at one of these institutions? "

Closing the Digital Divide -- Another Opportunity

The Persistence of the Digital Divide

The Digital Divide appears to morph, to shift its shape from time to time; but deep down it remains the same. Unfortunately, its changing skins-of-the-day have distracted attention from its underlying structure, i.e., the stronger communal networks that sustain increasing affluence on the "white" and "yellow" sides of the Divide vs. weaker networks associated with the shrinking shares of the nation's income and wealth on its "black" and "brown" sides. 

Fight or Flight (revised)

The Greatest and Second Greatest Generations
As a black American, I am especially mindful of a group of pioneers, the successive generations of courageous black activists who pushed the frontiers of freedom in wave after wave, beginning with their emancipation. Whereas some have argued that the "Greatest Generation" of (mostly white) Americans were the brave soldiers and sailors who fought against tyrannical enemies in World War II, I have long believed that the "Greatest Generation" of black Americans were the ex-slaves who lifted themselves and their children up from mass ignorance into mass literacy in the decades following the Civil War.