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A Secret No More
Delaware State University’s Tony Allen is paving the way for HBCUs
BY STEVE H. NEWTON
WHEN TONY ALLEN ARRIVED at Delaware State University (DSU) as provost in 2017, his stump presentation for legislators, donors, and community partners carried the title, “Delaware’s Best Kept Secret.”
Those days are long gone. DSU became the first Historically Black University to acquire another institution of higher learning (Wesley College in downtown Dover); developed into the nation’s number one provider of professional pilots of color; negotiated the first-ever agreement between an HBCU and the U.S. Agency for International Development; and received a $30 MM State investment to create an Early Childhood Education Innovation Center.
Everyone in Delaware knows that the University is on the move. “It’s not that the University wasn’t already doing great things,” Allen says, noting that prior to his arrival DSU had chartered the Early College High School; opened a facility on Kirkwood Highway; raised its research profile dramatically; and became Delaware’s top provider of teachers, social workers, nurses, and accountants of color. “We just weren’t getting our story out there for everyone to see. Once that happened, potential partners couldn’t wait to become involved.”
Campus COVID-19 safety protocols (“We have the best in the country”) and a wide-ranging debt forgiveness plan that has affected nearly 2,000 students (“We honestly didn’t know we were starting a major trend”) have also landed Delaware State University in the national spotlight.
Allen has appeared on The Today Show, GMA 3, ABC World News Tonight, ABC News Niteline, CNN, and the Black News Channel, as well as in Newsweek, Forbes, and the Washington Post. And in September, President Joe Biden tapped Allen as chairman of the President’s Board of Advisors to the White House HBCU Initiative. This appointment instantly placed Allen among the top spokespeople for America’s 104 HBCUs, alongside seasoned advocates like Dr. Harry Williams of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund; Lodriguez Murray of the United Negro College Fund; U.S. Senators Chris Coons (DE) and Tim Scott (SC); and U.S. Representative Alma Adams (NC).
The relationship with Joe Biden extends back over twenty-five years. “He took a chance on a young man fresh out of graduate school and made me his speechwriter and special assistant,” reflects Allen. That friendship has stood the test of time, with Allen most recently selected as CEO of the Presidential Inauguration Committee.
Even before his appointment to lead the White House HBCU Initiative had officially taken effect, Allen’s “Dear Colleagues” letter to fellow HBCU presidents emphasized four critical priorities:
• A robust mechanism to correct historic inequities in the physical infrastructure investments between HBCUs and Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) that are desperately needed across our campuses.
• A sustained effort for increased federal agency engagement to expand the research and scholarship capacity of all HBCUs across a vast array of disciplines, particularly those impacting people of color and low-resource communities.
• Significantly larger allocations of financial support for students, particularly those from low-resource communities, to graduate with little debt for themselves and their families.
• A focus on the specific needs of our smaller institutions that need direct support to continue their historic missions.
Controversies will face Allen in his new position. HBCUs educate 3 percent of all American college students, but traditionally receive less than one percent of federal funding, as well as much lower funding levels from state legislatures compared to PWIs. Some advocates believe that Biden has moved too slowly on campaign promises to the HBCU community, and that the recently passed infrastructure package contained fewer dollars earmarked for them than should have been the case.
“We have to be both assertive and realistic,” Allen says. “In his first year, President Biden and Congress have sent four times more funding to HBCUs than in any other single year in our history. That’s money going into deferred maintenance, hiring more world-class professors, and awarding Pell Grant support for our low-resource students.”
He believes in the long game. “Princeton University found that, as a sector, HBCUs far outperform PWIs in terms of changing the life trajectories of poor students and students of color,” Allen observes. “And that performance happens despite decades-long funding disparities. Think about what we could do with equitable funding.”
These days Tony Allen’s stump speech emphasizes “return on investment” to government, corporate, and nonprofit leaders. And they’re listening: the last two years have seen record-breaking donations and partnerships across the full spectrum of America’s HBCUs.
Allen often closes with his basic article of faith:
Steven H. Newton is a professor of history and political science and Presidential Fellow at Delaware State University.
