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

I'm Jeff Salkin.

We visited the University of Maryland Eastern Shore for a conversation with school president Dr. Heidi Anderson.

>> Four years of consecutive enrollment growth.

That's what we experienced last fall, and now this fall, we have our fifth year of consecutive enrollment growth.

Think about that.

Not many other schools here in the state can actually boast that.

But with growth like that also comes a bit of pain points, because we're trying to now house all of those students.

Since we require freshmen to live here on campus and here we are just last week, move-in day, we had overflooding of students on the campus.

We had to also house them around the community.

Another particular point of pride: We have our class in the health professions, our physician assistant class, where they just finished this past spring, gained full accreditation.

And when you and I talked five years ago, we were just starting that program up again.

And now, here we are, five years later, full accreditation.

And they are passing the national boards, 98, 96%, national average.

Same thing with our physical therapy and pharmacy students.

Another point of pride is where we're going with our vet program.

We have a school of agriculture and natural sciences and that has just been booming.

Our goats gave birth back in the spring, and we were so thrilled with that and just adding to the vibrancy of our campus.

But the new agriculture research education center, that is a new piece of our campus that is almost finished.

And we're going to be able to invite farmers from the local community over to learn new areas of our farming and those type of thing.

>> You're not an agriculture major, were you?

>> I'm a pharmacy major.

>> Jeff: Pharmacy.

>> Yes.

>> Jeff: So pharmacy terminology rolls off the tongue.

>> It does, doesn't it >> Jeff: We have our little side.

And I want to follow up on the growth, the growth of the student body.

Do you think that is a attributable to the programs that you have talked about, or, is it and maybe and/or a larger trend within HBCUs?

>> I think probably a number of factors.

I think this contributed not only to our academic programs, for example, We have programs, that you don't have in the rest of the state.

We have the only certified accredited, sequential arts program in the whole country.

So if a student wants to major in animation anime, they can only get it here.

we have the only accredited program nationwide.

then you think about just the state of Maryland.

We have the only four-year bachelor's degree in aviation sciences.

I know they call it aviation management or whatever, but I call it aviation sciences because it is a science.

We can have students come here and major in not only fly the plane, but fix the plane and land the plane.

Which I think is just amazing because you can't say that in any other place.

We have the only certified PGA of America golf program.

And then of course I always have to said, 8 health professions and now a ninth our vet school.

And so, that's what I think brings the students here and contributes to that growth.

The other part that contributes to the growth is my phenomenal recruitment team.

They have been out and they have been not only in the states, we bring students here, we have them here this year now this fall from 46 states in the country, and from 44 countries.

Internationally.

So they have been doing their job of making sure that they bring the students in, and the last part of the growth, is contributing to our faculty and staff.

Because retention is also everybody's business here at UMES.

And they try to make sure we keep our current students and bring them back.

And I want to go back and reflect on the points of pride if I could.

You asked me, another point of pride, another point of pride for us is sitting here, in the town of Princess Anne were we have our relationship with the town that's so close, but it is a really, we are a catalyst for the economic development of the shore.

So you're talking about the tri-county area here.

Delaware, Virginia and Maryland.

And you're looking at more than 224, 226 million dollars in economic impact that we bring.

That's a major point of pride.

>>> Let's talk about the location in Princess Anne.

I had some time to reflect on that as we were driving down from the area of the Baltimore beltway.

This has to be the most remote campus location in the university system of Maryland.

Not that bad, two and a half hours, something like that but is it a plus or a minus?

I mean, is it an advantage that you're away from the cities, rural area on the Eastern shore.

And maybe some people would prefer to be closer to the big cities.

Or is it an advantage here that, this is a bucolic as they always say, collegiate experience.

>> I think that, first of all, Jeff, I think maybe two and a half hours, you did great today.

You must have been 6:00 in morning.

>> Jeff: Not sure.

>> Must have been going 90.

But that's a good question.

I think it depends on who you ask.

For example, it is a plus when you think about the fact that sometimes in the winter time if you're getting snow on the other side of the bay, we're getting this much.

And it disappears.

You can think about it from the standpoint of, this legislative season, and I need to be in Annapolis every single day, I have to pause and think, especially when trying to get students there with me and also get them out of class.

I think it that has its polices and minus depending on who you ask.

You ask our students some of them who come from big cities.

They may say, there is not much to do here.

You ask others and they will say there is plenty to do.

You can sit and think and read and relax.

And then of course, there is the group who really wants to be close to the beach.

And we're so close, I wouldn't say you could see it outside my window, but we're close enough that students can get there fast.

>> Jeff: In terms of agriculture and the environment, you're so close to the Chesapeake Bay as well.

Maybe closer to the bay than to the Atlantic.

But this is a central location for a lot of those specialties.

>> It is, and it's the same distance on either side.

I think it is 45 minutes to the bay, 45 minutes to Atlantic ocean.

>> Jeff: You mentioned the challenges that come with the growing student body, housing people.

What other challenges occupy the time of the President of the university these days?

>> We don't look at challenges, Jeff.

We only have opportunities.

>> Jeff: Of course.

What are the top opportunities for improvement right now?

>> I think some of the top opportunities for improvement for us is looking at, like I said, our housing for our students, but I think also, just making sure that we're being very good stewards of the resources and the funds that the state gives to us.

>> Jeff: You mentioned once this is a land grant institution, but it is a particular subset of land grant institutions that I believe was tied to agriculture.

>> Subset is that we're an 1890s land grant institution.

And 1890 means that many years ago, Morell was a senator of the federal government, and they put in funding and monies for institutions to create an 1890 land grant to attract African-American students.

It was given to us with a mission that we actually have a tri-fold mission that we have to focus on agriculture, mechanical engineering and also education.

We have since expanded to make sure that we add healthcare, and really the teaching but also other particular areas.

And then, the other part of our mission is to give back and work in helping the community.

And so it is really to focus on solving those problems that are in the community of which we are.

So you mentioned like the Chesapeake bay earlier and oysters and what's happening there.

That's a problem, and our job is to help work with the fishermen and help the watermen, determine how to resolve whatever the issues are.

Or the farmers and the chicken litter to help solve those or healthcare disparities.

>> Jeff: Our thanks to Dr. Anderson, now a unique program at UMES and the university department of fine arts is drawing students from around the state and beyond.

MPT's Sue Kopen with that story.

>> Welcome to today's joint sequential arts class.

>> Open it up.

>> Ooh.

That is pretty cool.

>> Instructor professor Alvin Hernandez.

>> I'll go over again, the expectations that we're holding on everybody.

Sequential arts 3, you should know what you need to by the end because you're well into it.

You're working on your comics and your covers and you're working on your stuff.

Sequential Arts 1 and 2, we'll go over the requirements closer to the end.

>> So what is sequential arts?

>> Sequential arts is basically, visual story telling that involves panel to panel pictures and at times, the combination of words and pictures.

>> Chances are you have probably seen sequential art but just didn't know it.

>> We use sequential arts in many ways to tell instructions or visual information, in panel to panel storytelling, but of course more popular version and the one that people want to do more of is, Comics, manga, storyboards, animation or for film.

And some elements like children's illustration, images that follow one another.

>> The term sequential art has only been around for four decades, coined by a comic artist to describe the art form and its four elements: design, drawing, caricature and writing.

>> It involves a lot of the elements of pre-production for say animation.

We have to create characters and like environments, and it has elements of graphic design, pages have to look good and at the same time they have to tell their story.

You have to be a kind of a writer at the same time because your not just drawing things but you're also telling the story.

>> The sequential arts program here at UMES is attracting students not just from Maryland but around the country and the world.

>> It is still a program that if you look at the country, you're going to see programs that have sequential arts connected to it but it is not the majority of art programs.

And one of the big things about here is that we're the first HBCU to have it.

>> Baltimore resident is a graduate of the program.

>> My passion is graphic illustration.

To like design stuff for like industries or also like make Animation or movies.

So, there's a lot of things that I can do so I'm just seeing where my art can take me.

>> Prince Georges county resident Jordan says the UMES program provides some important career opportunities.

>> The fact that we can go to the comic conventions and sell our work at the conventions and act as actual working artists in the industry.

>> Professor Hernandez says they're working on adding a master's with great growth potential.

>> The growing too fast is a possessive the problem to have.

We'll figure that out when we get there.

It is a program that keeps growing every year.

So that is always a positive.

We're working on getting a masters going here as well.

Because I think that, one of the things that we definitely see is people wanting to pursue that further education in sequential.

>> At UMES, I'm Sue Kopen.

>> Several HBCUs collaborated on an art exhibits in collaboration with the Chrysler museum in Norfolk.

>> The Mosley Gallery at UMES was first to host the exhibition called "Define Yourself."

That's a quote from author James Baldwin who warned about being defined by others.

>> This is on this wall here, it is a print.

Margaret Burroughs was an important person in the black arts movement in Chicago, and she was actually the founder of the musuem which is on the south side of Chicago.

And Burroughs' piece is a reimagination of an illustration that was made about the Atlantic slave trade where the black female figure was sexualized and shown as kind of a Jezebel and what she does is she reimagines it as an empowered woman, not sexualized at all, so this kind of trajectory helps us understand that again wanting to be seen but in one's own terms is really important in this exhibition.

>> The Caplet was a Seminole African-American Sculptor.

And one of the very important things about her work is that it asks to be come here.

You look at her forms especially feminine forms close by, you see the beauty and the inner strength that so the fact that we're able to show a sculpture like this is important because not only are these work is very high valued but because they are fragile, it is hard to get loans of them from other institutions so the really special our students can just roll out of bed in their dorms and come into the gallery and behold such a beautiful and important piece.

>> Jeff: Students work closely involved in preparing and presenting the exhibit, This senior has a favorite.

>> This piece is called, mercy by Dennis Caldwood, and it involves the artists visiting this person who is a teenager, and he's in prison.

And he gave this prisoner the opportunity to pretty much identify himself in his own type of way.

And you chose to do this.

And it just spoke out to me because of how creative this person is.

I mean, just by looking at the prisoner, you wouldn't assume that he's such a creative and pick this up in such an artistic way, and it kind of makes me think about myself in a way because, you know, people go off of first appearances, and usually, they run with their first appearances on what they think about you and it shows that there are deeper parts of ourselves that many people don't know about until they actually--until you show it to them.

>> For the digital generation, the various styles and messages on display still resonate.

>> Everybody has their own creative style, and everybody has their own depiction of what they want to tell and whether it is a photograph, or a painting, or a collage.

It is just an awesome insulation of what we can do human beings.

>> Funding for the exhibit was provided by the art bridges foundation.

Now a sneak peek at the upcoming artwork special, The Art of HBCU Art.

The program takes a deeper look at UMES's effort to prepare students to create curate, and preserve Black art.

and its history in all of its forms.

Hear from professors, students alums who share insights on the artful lessons they learned at this historic university.

The art of HBCU Art airs right here on MPT on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. >> I am assistant professor of Fine Arts and Mosley Gallery director at the university of Maryland Eastern Shore.

For most of my students, being able to see artwork by African-American artists is really important because, thematically, it speaks to their experience.

Sometimes it is from a different era but there is the continuity of a legacy on the walls.

The most important consideration definitely is that, artists of color are very underrepresented in museum collections across the United States.

Statistically we know that in public museum collections, the representation of African-American artists is under 10%, possibly under 5 in most institutions.

So, when most of our students what walk into the museum in a major city or anywhere in the United States, unless it is a museum that's dedicated exclusivity to African-American art, this not seeing themselves represented on the walls of the gallery So we want to create a powerful experience by making sure they step into the gallery and see themselves recent presented in the art work.

Whether that's through the identity of the artist, the questions that the artist is asking or the very kind of representational figures and environments that the artist is putting in their work.

It is still very valuable for our students.

>> As Mosley Gallery director, I produce 8 to 10 exhibitions a year here in our academic gallery space.

I also try to start partnerships and provide internship opportunities for my students, museums and galleries outside the museum.

As museum workers and gallery workers, and art institutes, art history students we're stewards of these works so we can help them survive for future generations to be able to see them.

Sometimes when an artist passes away, the understanding is that they won't be making any more work.

So all the work that they have already made is out there in the world now and that needs to be preserved so that the future generations can also take advantage of seeing such art works.

You know, when we are handling them, we wear gloves.

We make sure that we carry them through clear paths.

Usually the crates come through the door, and they are opened here.

The work that you see behind me is work from the faculty exhibition so the different faculty members in the department have made them.

And, in a way, thematically we don't want art works too similar to each other to be next to each other so each work can breathe its own and speak to the viewer on its own.

So, these are some of the considerations, that there are so many.

But one of the most enjoyable parts of this experience is to be able to, you know, talk to students who trickle in during and work with student workers.

Give them the agency to make some of the decisions so that they feel ownership to the exhibitions that we're able to place in the gallery.

♪ ♪ >> I'm from south central Los Angeles and I grew up, I went to school in Culver City.

I worked in Hollywood so I really like L.A. is my home.

I grew up all over the place.

My journey with art began for me, before I was even born, all of my family is in the film business, or they have some type of creative eye.

So I've always been surrounded by art.

I grew up on sets, my mom used to do paintings when I was younger, so my first painting came from using her old paintings in the garage.

So I just grew and developed with art.

It was always my safe space.

So, it will continue to be, it is like a passion that I have to do, the way that I live.

So it is just been, from day to night, that's all I think and that's all I do.

So in the same way that Los Angeles is so diverse regarding everyone across the world, the outside of being in south central Los Angeles doesn't have a very high population of black people in one spot.

So, when I went to school, it was mostly-I never saw anyone like me.

I didn't have a group of just black friends.

And when I came here, I was just shocked about how many different type of diasporas are here.

So the way that I talk on the west coast versus my best friend being from D.C. and our language is interacting with each other, that difference in embracing her culture which is the same as my culture but it is completely different, really made me set in stone and confident and in how I'm so curious to travel around the world and learn about more people.

I just knew there was so much more to learn.

I came here because I committed to the women's golf team here.

And unfortunately I was injured last year but that allowed me to have more space and time to focus on my art and really curate what I'm trying to do with my future.

So, although golf is the reason why I came here, I stayed for the art program.

>> Jeff: Coming up later at 9:00 p.m., catch the broadcast premiere of MPT's PBS film "Becoming Thurgood."

the film which chronicles Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's journey through HBCU Lincoln and Howard University enroute to becoming the nation's foremost civil rights attorney.

An encore presentation for a national PBS audience follows at 10:00 p.m. ♪ ♪ >> This is Harlem.

Harlem always had the reputation of being a place of music, gaiety and excitement, but to US it has another meaning.

Here, only Negros live.

How did this come about?

The Negro was brought from Africa to be sold into slavery.

A century ago, slavery was abolished but a pattern of segregation took its place.

>> This was a dark hour, the black of night would come and the sun would not come out for a very long time.

>> Our first guest is the man who argued and won a case before the Supreme Court of the United States, which affected millions of Americans who formerly had second class citizenship.

Chief Counsel of the National Association of the Advancement Of Colored People, Thurgood Marshall.

>> Thurgood Marshall the only Supreme Court Justice in the history of the court who was more famous for what he did before rising to justice.

He spent six decades of his life committed to frankly making the 14th Amendment's guarantee for equality real.

>> Literally speaking he's one of the founding fathers.

>> We all know that after the Civil War, Congress ratified three amendments that we think of as the reconstruction or the Civil War amendments.

The 13th and 14th and 15th amendment.

The 13th abolished slavery, 15th that you cannot deny the right to vote based on race.

The 14th amendment the he Center piece of it.

>> The 14th amendment is designed to wrap black people in citizenship and having the same rights that white people do.

>> This was created for purpose of overturning the dread Scott case which made black people stateless people because the Supreme Court in dread Scott said that black people could not be citizens.

but we also know that there was the backlash and that reconstruction unraveled within 20 years.

Culminating in the 1896 Plessy V. Ferguson decision in which the Supreme Court said separate is equal but constitutional which basically pardoned the concept of Jim Crow that we lived with for 70 years thereafter.

>> Nor would the advocates of white supremacy contempt to have all of the wealth and votes and The law on its side.

Lynching increased in extraordinary numbers and race riots erupted across the country.

>> Race meant like Thurgood Marshall felt compelled to fight this caste system and devote their lives to it.

>> The first part of the civil rights movement.

Before somebody like Martin Luther King Jr. came along, you had to sue for the right to do what Martin Luther King Jr. was doing.

>> There is no one in this country who hasn't been touched by Thurgood Marshall's genius.

>> What is striking to me is the importance of law in determining the condition of the Negros.

Just realize, he was effectively enslaved by a law which declared him a chattel of his master.

He was emancipated by law, and then, disenfranchised and segregated by law.

And finally, in beginning to win equality by law.

>> 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 college universities.

More information at MPT.org/HBCU.

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

♪