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♪ >> Jeff: Hello, and welcome to an HBCU Week One on One special.

I'm Jeff Salkin.

We visited the campus of Bowie State University for a conversation with school president, Dr. Aminta Breaux.

>> Welcome to BSU, it's great to have you here.

>> Jeff: Great to be here on a major anniversary, 160 years, which makes Bowie the state's oldest HBCU, one of the oldest in the nation.

>> Yes, founded in 1865 on the corner of Calvert and Saratoga streets up in Baltimore City, very proud of that rich and wonderful legacy.

It's quite remarkable to think about where we are today because back then, they started with 12 students in the basement of that church, and here we are today with over 6,300 students attending Bowie State University.

And here in Prince George's County, it's quite remarkable.

>> The anniversary is a perfect occasion to do some strategic planning, and you have a new plan.

What's different in here, what are the headlines?

>> Well, we finished our Racing to Excellence Plan.

That was the last one, and now we are Boldly Forward.

That's the name of the new plan.

It's to align with the rapid change that's happening for higher education, for every business and industry in our nation, and around the world.

We're preparing students very differently than we have in the past.

With the advent of AI and so much technology being integrated into what we're doing, we need to make sure that our students are prepared to hit the ground running.

Entrepreneurship and experiential learning are very much integrated into our curriculums.

We want to make sure that every student graduating from BSU has at least one experiential learning opportunity an internship, externship, faculty student research before they graduate.

And then again, the hallmark of BSU is the way that we integrate entrepreneurship into our curriculums.

And as you came into the campus, I hope you saw our entrepreneurship living learning community.

>> Jeff: Right at 197.

>> That's right, right at the very entrance.

It's home to our Entrepreneurship Innovation Center.

So if a student has that great innovative idea, they can have the supports they need to create a new product or a new business.

And it's connected to a residence hall 557 students call that building home.

And we partnered with the Bowie Business Innovation Center, which is external facing to help the community with small startup businesses in the community.

And so our students are coming in thinking very differently about their educational journey.

We want to meet them where they are and also prepare them for success.

And some of them may need to create a new product or a new business, but they also may need to navigate in a different way through their career.

So we want them thinking differently, graduating with an entrepreneurial mindset.

It's just a way of thinking differently about the world.

When I graduated, I'll just use me as an example; I won't talk about when we graduated but when I graduated, we thought about going to work for a place for, you know, 20 years, and then you go to another job, perhaps.

That's not the mindset they need to have today.

We want them thinking about how to navigate when jobs may go away because of emerging technology, or there are mergers and acquisitions, or perhaps they might need to start a new business or a new product.

We want them to have the wherewithal to navigate all of this change.

>> Jeff: How are those technologies specifically artificial intelligence affecting higher for education?

I mean the students know how to use it, right?

>> Oh, they know how to use it.

ChatGPT and others like that generative AI it is becoming more and more part of our everyday lives, and the students are arriving having used that.

We want them to use the tools in the appropriate ways.

So it also impacts our teaching and how our faculty are teaching today to ensure students are learning because it's very easy to use one of these tools and ask it to write a paper for you.

But that's not helping our students to learn.

So it's reshaping the way that we teach and ensuring that students are learning.

Instead of asking a student to just go off and write a paper, we'll come back and talk about what's the essence of that paper, have them stand in front of the room and, you know, espouse what they learned through that.

So just getting the faculty to think differently about these tools that are out here.

So I'm very, very proud of our faculty leaning into the technology.

We have an AI task force here to help us understand how to use the tools, to integrate the tools into the learning process here, and also develop the ethics around it because I think that's where we as a society need to stay focused.

Because there are all these tools out here, but how do you put it to good use in ways that, for us, help us to ensure that students are still learning?

So going back to that plan, Boldly Forward, it's about shaping and reshaping the learning for our students, how we teach, making sure they deepen their knowledge around experiential learning.

And we're really, really proud of the R2 designation that we received as a Carnegie classification institution, and we've set our sights on becoming an R2.

Right now, we have the research designation, but we're really pouring a lot of resources into research because we need to stay ahead of the curve.

>> Jeff: I know you're proud of some other ranks that have had Bowie ranked quite highly.

>> Yes, well, Bowie State University is ranked number 11 among the more than 100 HBCUs in the nation.

Very proud of that.

And also, most recently, we were ranked number five by Forbes for being the best online program.

So we ranked number five among the more than 100 HBCUs.

Really pleased with the work that our faculty have done to create new courses and full online programs, and that's really growing by leaps and bounds.

The world has changed quite a bit, and again, it's about the learners, and not everyone wants to come to the campus or can.

And so we want to be that place where students can come to upskill, retool, and then go back out into the workforce.

>> Well, for students who do want to come to campus, there aren't many places that are easier to come to than Bowie State.

I mean, as you walk around here, you see some new buildings, and about every 10 or 15 minutes, you hear a train whistle.

>> Ah, yes.

>> Jeff: You have a train stop?

>> We have a stop, yes.

>> Jeff: And.

>> you are looking along with the governor, to maximize that.

>> Yes, we thank our governor so much.

He recently announced our collaborative effort to build out the land around that MARC train station here at Bowie State University.

It's a great opportunity to bring more businesses, more students to the campus, up to Baltimore, and beyond Philadelphia, to Delaware, and to New York, and down to D.C.

So we're really excited about what this affords us the opportunity to do.

So we're pleased to work alongside the governor, our legislators, with the state, but also with our county, under our new county executive, Aisha Braveboy, who has embraced the vision for building out this land around Bowie State University.

We sit on a campus of 337 acres, and when I think about the possibilities, there's so much more we can do for our community.

So we want to bring businesses here.

The ultimate goal is to build an innovation district around Bowie State University to bring more business here.

We're part of the economic engine, producing about $351 million of economic benefit to this community.

With that train station and the development, we'll be able to do so much more.

>> Jeff: You've been a big economic engine for the Baltimore region too, thinking about the CIAA basketball tournament.

Bowie State University, a member of that conference.

The tournament used to be held, I think, in North Carolina.

>> Yes, that's right.

Charlotte.

>> Jeff: You helped to lure it to Baltimore, and now that's been renewed, right?

>> That's right.

We will be there for another three years.

We're very excited about that.

We are the host university for the tournament.

We're the only member institution in the CIAA that's in the state of Maryland.

So I'm thrilled that it's staying in Baltimore, but it wasn't just me and Bowie State.

It's really us pulling together as a community the alumni, the fans who came in over the last few years to see the excellence on the court and our excellence from our member institutions that's what made the difference.

The mayor, Mayor Scott, has been just an amazing leader and supporter of the tournament there.

We worked along with Visit Baltimore and the legislators there, the representatives for the council.

So it's all of us pulling together that made that possible.

So I served as the chair for the last four years, and I'm just really thrilled that it's staying in Baltimore.

>> Jeff: It's great to hear because it's not just about basketball.

I mean, there are all sorts of academic opportunities for young people to learn about schools, including HBCUs, including Bowie State University.

>> For a young person who might be watching, a family member, why should they consider Bowie State University?

>> Bowie State University is a beacon of excellence.

It is an amazing institution from a teaching perspective, as well as research.

We're very strong in the STEM areas from computer science, cybersecurity.

We have a center of excellence designated by NSA for cybersecurity.

Very strong in the STEM areas.

We also have a very strong nursing program, and we started up in Baltimore preparing educators to go out into our communities to continue providing access to education.

We still remain there.

>> So we are producing teachers today, but in very different ways.

And so teaching, education we're strong in communications, as well as in nursing and the arts.

And very much in the stem areas.

And then the social services psychology is one of our largest programs, along with criminal justice.

>> For all these reasons, I invite people to come and see what I see every day excellence across this campus.

It's a fun place to be.

HBCUs are about nurturing, about wrapping our arms around our students, lifting them up, making sure that they succeed.

And be careful, Jeff, you're known to get a hug or two around here because that's just who we are.

>> Jeff: Well, thank you so much for making time for us during a very busy, exciting time here.

Dr. Breaux, thank you.

>> Thank you, Jeff.

It's great to have you here.

>> Bowie State students are blending the technical precision of computer science with the creative expression of visual arts.

Here's MPT's Nancy Yamada on the virtual reality and gaming program.

>> The traditional gaming or traditional games allow the gamers to interact with the models and with the story from behind the character, through the character.

VR systems incorporate AI into this gaming field, allowing the player to be the character.

>> There's a mirror, there's someone there with me as well, and I have like a living room section with different people.

>> This Bowie State University graduate student isn't just playing in a virtual reality world, she's creating it.

That's part of the curriculum in the virtual reality and gaming program.

Bowie State is the first HBCU to offer this Bachelor of Science degree.

>> So, we're looking at one of the platforms that we developed to help students be more engaged.

>> Graduate student Ruth Agana shows us how learning about.

coding, algorithms, and 3D animation and visualization can be used for far more than entertainment.

Their computer science skills are being utilized in education and in the healthcare field.

>> It has definitely evolved into being more than just entertainment because, as we have come to understand, if I can get fun out of it, cool, I can get fun out of a thing.

But what else can I do with this thing?

Because I want to integrate it into every other aspect of my life.

>> It's proven to be especially useful for patients with mobility issues.

>> It's used in preventive care It is used in rehabilitative care, for people with Parkinson, helping them perform specific sets of short exercises in short bursts to help them increase their range of motion.

>> This industry is rapidly changing in large part because of AI, or artificial intelligence.

Students are being encouraged to embrace it because it's here to stay.

>> They continue to push the boundary between realism and, you know, creating work, and it can be really, really fantastic for this field because when gamers try to access any kind of game or play any kind of game, one of the biggest things for them is how realistic the characters look, how realistic the models would look.

>> For example, when people do the hydrants, we want to use AI to capture the real life like animations for the real human, applying it to the 3D animated character.

>> Professor Jin expects the program will be even more popular given that the global market size for extended reality is expected to grow 34% annually until 2033, according to Dimension Market Research.

The estimated value of the industry is expected to reach $25.3 billion.

>> With integrating A.I.

into this space, we now take an already established field, an already burgeoning area, and work towards adding a little bit of intelligence in it.

How do I offshoot some of these tasks that would have been done by a person?

How do we intelligently come up with a solution?

>> While AI can increase their efficiency, students point out it can't replace their problem solving skills, critical thinking, and creativity.

At Bowie State University, I'm Nancy Yamada.

>> Tonight, we've heard about what's new at Bowie State University from our sit down interview with Dr. Breaux, and we've learned more about the university's virtual reality and gaming program.

Next, we want to learn more about why Dr. Breaux decided that Bowie State University was the right destination on her career path.

She recently sat down for a discussion with MPT Senior Vice President Travis Mitchell for our Maryland Oral History Project.

>> What was it about coming to Maryland, coming to Bowie, that attracted you?

You're an accomplished scholar, you're well regarded and so you decide to take up the challenge to become the 10th president of Bowie.

What was the attraction?

>> There were so many elements to that decision.

There are many opportunities that I saw.

And just reading about the opportunity for the presidential position, but it is about the history, the culture that's there on the campus and in the surrounding area.

You know, an institution is the oldest HBCU in the state of Maryland, founded in 1865, and it's thriving in Prince George's County.

>> It has this unique experience being so close to Washington, D.C., close to Baltimore, close to Annapolis, in this idyllic area a beautiful campus over 330 acres of beautiful campus in Prince George's County.

Easy access.

There's a train station that takes you right into the city if you want the hustle and bustle of D.C., or coming up to Baltimore.

But if you want a rich learning experience, excellence is what I saw on the campus in teaching, in research.

I was amazed.

I read mostly about the teaching aspect of Bowie State University, but then as I delved deeply into the full breadth of BSU, what I saw was excellence in teaching, research, and the service components.

It's a public university, part of the University System of Maryland, and it truly is here for the public good.

Our students give back, and that's that deep sense of history.

And I see that in the students every day that they want to make the place better than how they found it.

And that's the legacy, and that speaks to my heart.

It speaks to who I am as a leader, how I have gone through this journey in my life, being inspired by role models who ingrained that in me.

You're not just here to sit in a seat; you need to leave your mark, you need to look out for others.

You know, this doesn't just happen.

I think about my own ancestors and how they opened the door for me to be where I am.

My grandmother came to this country in the early 1900s from Cartagena, Colombia, with the goal of becoming a physician.

She faced incredible, insurmountable obstacles to doing that, but she didn't give up.

She made sure that she got her education, made sure that each one of her children understood the value of education.

So I see it as part of my sense of purpose to give back, to create these opportunities for children, for youth, to have the way forward.

And so at Bowie, you see that, you feel it.

When you come onto our campus, there's a different feeling you get.

You feel that people care.

Visitors to the campus, they come in and they say, "You know, is it like this every day?"

I'll say, "What do you mean?"

Well, along the way to your office, I was stopped by, you know, two or three people who said, 'Are you okay?

Do you know where you're going?'"

Because we're looking out for each other.

So it's that deep sense of purpose that's on the campus, and it excites me.

it truly excites me.

>> One of the things that I admire I told you, I'm trying not to be chief cheerleader while we're having this conversation, but I'm a big fan of what you've been able to do.

And part of that is because I've kind of observed you in different settings, and what you're talking about in terms of purpose and the importance of providing an environment for your students.

I've kind of watched you engage with very powerful and influential people across the state and the nation in different settings.

And you've never once failed to stop to acknowledge one of your students or stop what you're doing to speak to your students.

And I kind of want to go back to growing up with educators.

My mother we share somewhat of a history, my mother was an educator.

I didn't think any other jobs existed other than education, and she brought her work home with her.

She felt it.

And so the needs of her students, meeting the needs is what drove her as a counselor, and later as a principal.

We were talking about commencement, and I asked you a question.

I said, "Well, when you are graduating a class and you see a student walk across the stage, what runs across your mind?"

Can you share a little bit of what you shared with me about that?

>> Well, what goes across my mind, what comes into my mind, is the thought of my ancestors and my family, but also those in higher education that came before me, too.

I have a deep sense of obligation and a commitment to ensure that I continue that legacy.

And what I want to speak to also is the joy that I have in my heart.

When I see students go across that stage, I get filled up, I do.

I look out, and I see their families cheering them, celebrating, and hear the horns going off.

But it starts with having that deep sense of pride that we've arrived at this point, and a sense of purpose that I'm here for a reason.

This doesn't just happen by accident.

And so I think about my ancestors, I think about my grandmother, I think about my father, and all of those who came before, who fought so hard for us to have this privilege, this right to education.

Dr. xxxxxx has led Bowie State University for the past eight years in her capacity as the institution's 10th president.

She shares more about her personal journey, the significance of BSU's 125th anniversary, and the importance of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association's basketball tournament extending its stay in Baltimore for several more years in the documentary Inside the CIAA: Her Story, airing later tonight on MPT at 8:30.

Let's take a look.

[Music] >> Well, I've been in higher education for a little while now let's just say over 30 years and what has truly shaped my journey has been the inspiration that I've derived from my family, who valued education so very much.

It was never asked of myself or my siblings whether or not we were going to college.

It was just expected that we understood the value of education.

My father was an educator, as well as a track and field coach of Olympic athletes.

So he inspired all of us to run a good race and finish the race.

Well, I think sports are so valuable for helping young people to develop amazing skills leadership skills, communication skills, the ability to work as part of a team, and most importantly, resilience.

Because not everyone can win, Right?

And so there are those failures, and they learn how to fail, but you get up quickly, and you have to get back in there.

You don't stay down too long.

And it's up to you to get across that finish line.

So somehow you dig down deep, and you find that strength, and you get across.

Now, you may not always be first, but you get across the line.

And that's what I was taught.

You've got to finish.

If you have to crawl, walk, or whatever you're going to do, you're going to get over the finish lines.

Our athletic program is very, very strong.

Long history of competition, and, you know, the CIAA is about that competition, but it's also about the love that we show to each other.

We talk stuff on the sidelines, and, you know, when we're watching our student athletes, but at the end of the day it's all about the camaraderie and the love that our HBCUs feel for one another because we're all about lifting up each one of our institutions, making sure that we're successful so our student athletes can have opportunities.

>> So for Bowie State University, this is also a special year for us.

We're celebrating 160 years of our founding, being founded in the city of Baltimore.

We're hosting the CIAA basketball tournament.

So it means a great deal for us because this is about our history coming back to our roots, where we started on the corner of Calvert and Saratoga streets in Baltimore City.

So it's full of excitement, a sense of responsibility for the legacy and those who came before, and ensuring that this generation not just our athletic programs but across the city of Baltimore and throughout the state knows about this history, a rich, rich history of sports, but also preparing young people to go out into the world from our institutions, contributing back to their communities.

For us at Bowie State University, it means a lot that we're back in the city of Baltimore, where we are giving back.

You know, the CIAA also prides itself on making sure our students are doing service activities while they're going through the tournament during that week, making sure that they're out in the city, they're participating with Samaritan's Feet, they're giving shoes to young people in need.

And so it means a lot for us to carry on that legacy of giving back to our community.

Painting her story well, I am the first woman to serve in this position as President of Bowie State University, and I want to make sure I'm not the last.

And so with the CIAA celebrating our women and women's basketball for 50 years, again, it's about making sure others know this is history, empowering women to say, "I can do that too."

So we're really excited to be able to celebrate 50 years of women's basketball as part of the CIAA.

I also look at another exemplar, and that is our leader, our commissioner, Jacqie McWilliams Parker.

She is truly an inspiring leader.

She has a long and rich history in basketball.

She played for Hampton University, and so she's part of a championship and Hall of Fame team.

So she too helps tell that story so that other young women can say, "Well, she did that, and now she's running the entire operation.

What can I do?"

So this is an exciting year in celebrating 50 years of women's basketball as part of the CIAA.

>> Jeff: Thank you for joining us for this HBCU Week Special.

This is MPT's sixth season of exploring the legacy and future of the region's historically Black colleges and universities.

More information can be found at mpt.org/hbcu.

Now, for all of us at MPT, thank you for watching.

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