Academic and Research Highlights

Academic & Research Highlights

Expanding Opportunites

Fisk is committed to providing our students with opportunities that rival the best institutions in the country. To honor that commitment, this year we have added 4 new Bachelor’s degrees including Data Science, Homeland Security, Criminal Justice and Bioinformatics. We have also added two new Associates degrees including Social Justice and Business Administration. These new majors will open doors for our students that we could not provide before and we are thrilled to be expanding our university in such an exciting way. In the words of University Provost Dr. Vann Newkirk: “I believe the addition of these new programs will launch a new chapter of excellence at Fisk University. The programs in Homeland Security and Data Science are the only such programs in the State of Tennessee. The new Associates Degree programs will allow eligible Tennessee residents to take advantage of the Tennessee promise program.” This is a huge step in the right direction for attracting new students and becoming the #1 HBCU. Fisk University Extends Campus to Clarksville

This year Fisk had the opportunity to expand it’s physical footprint all the way to Clarksville, TN where we opened our first satellite campus. Our campus will be housed in the Emmanuel Family Life Center, which is fully equipped to handle our new students. The campus will be focusing on our new majors; Homeland Security, Criminal Justice, Social Justice, and Human Development. We are thrilled about the extended campus as it affords us the opportunity to expand our presence in the state of Tennessee and make a Fisk education more accessible to members of our armed services. The Fisk University extended site is the only HBCU in Clarksville.

Academic and Research Highlights

Coding Into the Future

Our computer science department continues to garner widespread attention. The results are impressive and more and more employers are seeking students with technological expertise. Every year students choose to attend Fisk University because of our well documented Google partnership. The Google In Residence program was founded in 2013 with the mission to grow and support a more representative pipeline of qualified students. The program embeds Google engineers at HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions across the country to serve as visiting lecturers for the school's introductory Computer Science courses. The Google In Residence instructors bring an industry perspective to campus. They work with the community to develop a strong Computer Science curriculum, to support students in their search, and to grow student engagement in technical fields. Since 2014, Fisk University has been part of the Google In Residence program, and the pipeline of internships and permanent hires has grown steadily over the years. The demand for technology talent is also reflected in the growing interest among students pursuing the recently launched Data Science major. As big data continues to impact major decision-making processes across the spectrums of industry, it is becoming essential to not only manage but also interpret such findings. Our students with their broad liberal arts exposure are uniquely qualified to address this challenge. Last year alone, four of our students won research awards for their work on Applications for Computational Thinking.

Honors for Honors

The Honors Program has had an unparalleled year of success. In the spring, the program brought to campus Tyehimba Jess, whose book Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. He gave a public reading and visited with small groups of students. Jess’s book includes a series of poems in the voice of the Fisk Jubilee Singers®, and he so enjoyed visiting Fisk, including the archives and a rehearsal of the Jubilee Singers, that he established a fund to bring more poets of color to Fisk in the future. The fund partially supported the October 14th event, “Writing Survival,” a visit from Danez Smith and Brandon Hobson in partnership with the National Book Foundation. The Honors Program also hosted Fisk alumna Dr. Shively Smith ’03 as the keynote speaker for Honors Convocation. Dr. Smith is currently Assistant Professor of New Testament Studies at Boston University’s School of Theology. In March 2019, the Honors Program students attended the Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council Conference, where five students presented their original research. The significant growth of our Honors Program has also resulted in a growing number of students presenting at national conferences and submitting original research proposals. The Honors Program provides unique exposure and mentorship for students who are looking for that experience as they prepare for elite graduate or professional schools. More and more of our honors students are being considered for prestigious national scholarships, fellowships and awards, which also explains the drastic increase in the number of applications for the Honors Program. Going forward, we are looking to offer an even more robust framework, programmatic as well as infrastructural for these exceptional students.