Commissioners from HBCU athletic conferences joined university presidents and corporate leaders in Washington on Tuesday, Sept. 15, for the Salute to HBCU Sports Leadership Reception — an invitation-only gathering aimed at deepening investment in historically Black colleges and universities.

Hosted at Gensler’s K Street office, the evening brought together conference commissioners, campus presidents, and executives from sports, media and design organizations under the theme “Building Partnerships. Celebrating Excellence. Advancing HBCUs.” Gensler highlighted its partnership with Paxton Baker on the event in a post on Instagram, showcasing the room full of HBCU presidents and conference leaders.

Five Conferences, One Room

Commissioners from four NCAA conferences and one NAIA conference were on hand, representing institutions that compete across Division I, Division II and the NAIA:

Anthony Holloman — Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Charles McClelland — Southwestern Athletic Conference Jacqie McWilliams Parker — Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Sonja Stills — Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Kiki Baker Barnes — HBCU Athletic Conference

Their presence linked leadership from across the HBCU athletics landscape with campus administrators and organizations working in event management, design and media.

Presidents and Black Press Leadership in the Room

Among the university presidents in attendance were Prairie View A&M’s Tomikia P. LeGrande and Bowie State’s Aminta H. Breaux.

LeGrande’s appearance came just days after the Thurgood Marshall College Fund named her the recipient of its Educational Leadership Award, as announced by Prairie View A&M. She was honored at TMCF’s 39th Anniversary Gala on Sept. 12 in Washington. LeGrande has served as Prairie View A&M’s ninth president since June 2023.

Breaux, who has led Bowie State since July 2017, previously chaired the CIAA’s board of directors, according to her university biography.

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also attended — fitting, given the NNPA’s role as one of the reception’s presenting partners. Chavis and HBCU GO’s Lawrencia Moten conducted two 30-minute interview sessions with the conference commissioners, covering topics ranging from the NIL era to conference growth and the experience of leading HBCU athletics, according to HBCU GO President Curtis Symonds, who spoke with HBCU Legends about the sessions.

Corporate and Institutional Partners

Five organizations presented the reception together:

Gensler — the architecture and design firm that hosted the event Events DC — the District’s convention and sports authority USA Track & Field — the sport’s national governing body National Newspaper Publishers Association — representing Black newspaper publishers HBCU GO — the network dedicated to HBCU sports and culture

That mix of partners pointed to a range of possible collaborations ahead, from athletic facilities and event operations to sports programming and media coverage.

Building Beyond the Scoreboard

What stood out most was the mix of people in the room — conference commissioners setting strategy for their leagues, university presidents shaping institutional priorities, and corporate partners bringing resources and expertise from multiple industries.

With college athletics undergoing rapid change, particularly for HBCUs navigating the NIL era and shifting conference dynamics, the reception offered a venue for candid conversation and relationship-building. Its underlying purpose went beyond athletics: using sports as an entry point to broader opportunities in education, workforce development and economic growth for HBCUs.

Based on reporting by Columbus Times.

Ask someone outside of Louisiana what they know about Southern University, and there is a good chance the conversation will eventually lead to HBCU culture and the Human Jukebox. And rightfully so. The Human Jukebox has earned its reputation through generations of hard work, discipline and excellence. It represents more than halftime entertainment; it is part of the heart of Southern University and HBCU culture. But after the Jukebox, what comes next? That is where Southern has a public relations problem.

Southern University is home to a nursing school that was named Best Nursing School in the United States by Nurse.org for the second consecutive year in 2026. The program also reported a 100% first-time pass rate on the 2025 American Academy of Nurse Practitioners certification examination. Accomplishments like those should be just as inseparable from Southern’s name as its band and culture.

Instead, Southern’s positive story is too often forced to compete with another narrative: housing shortages, unanswered questions, aging infrastructure, power outages and the familiar feeling among students that something else has gone wrong. The recent power outages made that especially difficult to ignore.

Southern lost power on Sept. 1, forcing classes to be canceled. Days later, another outage affected campus operations, eventually leading the university to close campus for multiple days and shift classes remotely. Students told local news stations about losing food, struggling without air conditioning and Wi-Fi, and trying to keep up with schoolwork while the campus dealt with electrical problems. Watching frustrated students explain their experiences to local reporters made me ask a simple question: Is this bad PR? At first, I thought the answer was obvious. Communication during the outage felt too slow. Students wanted to know when power would return, whether classes would continue and when campus life would return to normal. When information is limited, rumors fill the gap. One person says the power is back. Someone else says it went back out. Students begin relying on each other before they rely on the institution. But learning more about what happens behind the scenes complicated my original opinion.

The people responsible for communicating cannot simply release whatever information is circulating. They may be waiting on utility companies, facilities officials, emergency management or university leadership to confirm what is actually happening. Publishing an estimate that turns out to be wrong can create even more confusion. That does not mean communication should stop.

There is a difference between saying, “We don’t know,” and saying nothing. Even when there is no new information, students can still be told that there is no new information. An update saying officials are still waiting for confirmation, explaining what is currently known and telling students when to expect another update creates something extremely important during a crisis: certainty about the communication process, even when there is uncertainty about the situation itself.

But the more I thought about “Bad PR?” the more I realized Southern’s problem is bigger than how quickly an email goes out. Public relations cannot turn the electricity back on. It cannot build a residence hall overnight. It cannot make every office answer its phone. It cannot win a football game. At some point, an institution’s reputation has to be supported by the institution itself.

Southern entered Fall 2026 with campus housing completely occupied and its housing waitlist at capacity. The university is responding by moving forward with new housing that is expected to add approximately 850 beds. That investment matters. But it also represents a larger pattern Southern cannot afford to continue: waiting until a problem becomes part of the student experience before the solution becomes visible. Southern cannot continuously rely on the resilience of its students as part of its operating model.

There is almost a collective “struggle bus” mentality that can develop on campus. Something is broken. Something is delayed. Another office is not answering. Another unexpected problem appears. But at least we are still here, getting our education and figuring it out. Southern certainly develops character. But students should not have to develop character by constantly learning to navigate problems that an evolving university should be working to eliminate.

That is especially important because Southern does not exist in isolation. Across Baton Rouge sits LSU, one of the most recognizable universities in the state. Comparisons between the two institutions are almost inevitable, whether those comparisons are fair or not. Southern should not try to become LSU. It should become the strongest possible version of Southern.

There is something different about attending an HBCU. There is value in entering classrooms where students who look like you can be recognized for their intelligence without first having to prove that they belong there. There is value in being surrounded by people who may come from completely different backgrounds while sharing an experience rooted in Black history, culture and achievement. Southern has that. It has legacy. It has culture. It has nationally recognized programs. It has students worth celebrating. It has one of the most recognizable bands in college culture. The problem is not that Southern lacks a brand. Southern’s problem is keeping that legacy intact while building an institution capable of carrying it into the future. Construction around campus shows that change is happening. New housing is coming. Infrastructure is being addressed. But physical construction cannot be the only visible evidence of progress. Students should be able to experience that evolution in customer service, communication, technology, facilities and the everyday systems they depend on.

The Human Jukebox does not need less recognition. The rest of Southern needs to reach the same standard of excellence that makes the Jukebox so easy to celebrate. If Southern wants to control its narrative nationally, the answer cannot simply be better marketing whenever something goes wrong. Southern already has the story.

The nursing students achieving nationally recognized results are part of the story. The students earning degrees are part of the story. The culture is part of the story. The Jukebox is part of the story. The history and generations of alumni are part of the story.

But so are the outages, housing frustrations and institutional problems students experience. Public relations can decide how a story is communicated, but it cannot permanently separate reputation from reality. Maybe Southern does not have a “bad PR” problem after all. Maybe Southern has an institution with an incredibly strong brand that is sometimes being asked to carry more weight than it should. If Southern truly wants to control its narrative, that work cannot begin and end with a press release. It has to begin within.

Based on reporting by Southern University – SouthernDIGEST.

Terrance’s Take:

PRAIRIE VIEW — On the surface, it seems like Prairie View’s dominant 52-14 win over Texas Southern in the 41st Labor Day Classic was a bold statement about what’s to come.

But in Prairie View coach Tremaine Jackson’s mind, the resounding early-season showing against a rival, SWAC opponent, and West Division foe was more of a testament to what it took for the Panthers to rise to the occasion like they did Sunday morning on an ESPN national platform.

“That they will punch you in your face,” Jackson said when I asked what he learned about his team. “I’m not trying to sound any kind of way by saying that. You don’t get to see behind the scenes with this squad. You didn’t get to see fall camp; you didn’t get to see summer training.

“So a lot of what I saw today is what we built in the summer and the spring when we go through D.O.G. training. We made them tap out. It ain’t no secret about that.”

The Panthers, the defending SWAC Champions, showed why they are the favorites to repeat as conference champs again and to represent the SWAC in the Black College Football national championship. They stole the drama out of this storied rivalry from the outset – literally – when Jahbari Kuykendall took the opening kickoff 90 yards for the touchdown.

It never felt like this one was going to be close from there. These are two good West Division teams that could finish one-two again.

Prairie View is just that much better in Year Two of Tremaine Jackson.

“We dominated. Our preparation. We prepare like nobody else,” said Prairie View running back Chase Bingmon, who rushed for 60 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries. “The way we are built up, the way we are coached up; we’re prepared. We dominated.”

What was telling about Sunday’s performance was that Prairie View just kind of did what it wanted to do when it wanted to do it. Texas Southern, behind the ground attack of running back Athean Renfro and quarterback Cam’Ron McCoy, won the rushing battle 216 yards to 160 and dominated the time of possession 40:22 to 17:35.

Yet it wasn’t even close.

Quarterback Tevin Carter, in his first season as the solidified starter, was the pure definition of a dual threat as he picked up key yards on the ground, including a 24-yard touchdown, while he showed us what he can do with his arm and decision-making by completing 16 of 22 passes for 217 yards and four touchdowns.

The Panthers’ defense, which has shown some susceptibility to the rush over the past two weeks, showed it can pull it together and make plays when necessary. The unit kept McCoy mostly in check, with Malachi Williams and J.J. Jean-Louis combining for four of the six sacks on him.

“We forcefully dominated. We took their will,” said Jackson, whose team improved to 1-1 overall after losing its season-opening game at Tarleton State last week. “And we still didn’t play in the manner that we wanted to play. So I’m excited about where we still can go because we have a long way to go still.”

Things toughen up for the Panthers considerably next week when they head to Waco to take on the Baylor Bears of the Big 12. These are commonly known as money games, where FCS schools line up for a beatdown and a nice payday for their trouble.

But Jackson has a message for the Bears if they think it’s going to be that easy.

“I tell you what, we are not going to Baylor to pick up no checks. So don’t write that story,” Jackson said. “Don’t write no story about us; we’re just going to have a good showing. We are going to Baylor to get a win. That’s how we do things. That’s how these guys prepare.”

In the meantime, TSU and head coach Cris Dishman are having to figure out some things after coming into the SWAC opener feeling pretty good after a 42-30 season-opening win over North Carolina Central. The Tigers will play two of their next three games out of conference, beginning with a trip to El Paso next week to take on UTEP.

As bad a loss as Sunday was, Dishman said the best thing his players can do is put it behind them.

“The message was, we’ve got a game next week because one loss can turn into two losses,” Dishman said. “I don’t play Prairie View again until next year.

“I know on Twitter and social media, they play each other all of the time, but I don’t. I don’t have to worry about Prairie View, and I wish them the best of luck. But I do hope they slip up so that we can slip in.”

Jackson is sitting comfortably at the top of the West and does not currently need any help to get to where he wants to be.

“We get to sit it out and watch others fight it out for a little bit because we go non-conference for the next two weeks,” he said. “This is what we wanted to do. The winner of this game was going to put themselves in the driver’s seat in the West and control their own destiny and not need any help. That’s what we wanted to do. We don’t ever want any help from anybody else.

“We can’t rely on other people. We can only rely on what we do within our program.”

Based on reporting by Houston Defender.

What does it take for a campus choir to get noticed by the biggest names in gospel music? For Southern University’s Gospel Choir (SUGC), it took countless late rehearsals, unwavering faith, and a powerful sound.

Here on the bluff, SUGC captures audiences with strong praises and an uplifting spirit. Witnessing their performance is an unforgettable experience. The DIGEST had the honor of interviewing Mr. Ernest Bowman Jr., the Director of SUGC, regarding the choir’s recent Stellar Award nomination for HBCU Choir of the Year.

“To be nominated in the first year of this category was historical,” Bowman stated. “Although we did not bring home the award, SUGC will always be recognized as one of the first choirs nominated in a category of its kind. Nearly every artist I met already knew about us and had great things to say, confirming that SUGC is one of the premier collegiate gospel choirs in the country. Our legacy reaches well beyond campus.”

The experience was also monumental for student director D’Arius Roland, who represented the Jaguar Nation on a national platform. Bowman notes that while the recognition serves as a powerful recruiting tool, budget limitations unfortunately prevented the entire choir from traveling.

“I pray this historic honor helps our administration realize what a jewel SUGC truly is and begin supporting us accordingly,” Bowman said. “Moving forward, we want to expand travel, record original music, strengthen our digital presence, and secure additional student scholarships. This nomination was not the finish line.”

Kyra Long, a Junior Nursing major, Dance minor, and SUGC President, shared how surreal the moment felt. “To see our choir receive recognition on that level is a reminder that our work goes far beyond singing. We use our gifts to minister, represent our university, and glorify God,” Long said. “SUGC has truly changed my life. It gave me a family, strengthened my faith, and challenged me to grow as a leader.”

Curtis Williams Jr., a second-year member majoring in Rehabilitation Services and Counseling, echoed that excitement. “The nomination was shocking and exciting; we found out during Spring 2026 graduation and were so grateful,” Williams said. “SUGC has helped me grow not only as a singer, but also as a person.”

Well jaguar nation, there you have it! History in the making and there’s a lot more to go and achieve. The Southern University Gospel Choir has achieved so much and changed the lives of many.

As we all shall remember: When the music in your spirit matches the joy in your heart, heaven listens and a Stellar Award nomination follows.

Based on reporting by Southern University – SouthernDIGEST.

Elbert Frank Cox was born Dec. 5, 1895, in Evansville, Indiana, and attended segregated public schools that were chronically underfunded for Black students.

When Cox was six, a mob of white residents stormed the county jail after the murder of a white police officer, setting off a four-day riot that left as many as 13 people dead; it took a state militia of 300 men, called in by the governor, to end it, and roughly 2,000 of the city’s 8,000 Black residents fled in its aftermath. The Ku Klux Klan later established its Indiana headquarters in Evansville in 1920. Cox’s family stayed. Cox looked up to the Black teachers in his segregated schools, who pushed literacy and academic achievement despite having few resources to work with.

Cox enrolled at Indiana University Bloomington in 1913 to study physics and mathematics, one of just three Black students in his undergraduate class alongside his brother, Avalon. He took a wide range of coursework beyond his major, including German, English, Latin, history, hygiene, chemistry, education and philosophy, and earned A’s in every math course.

That achievement came despite treatment that made clear he was not considered an equal member of the student body: his transcript carried the word “colored” printed across the top, as did every Black students at the time, and in at least one class, Black students were made to sit in the hallway with the classroom door propped open so they could listen in rather than sit alongside their white classmates.

Cox was also passed over for membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society despite his academic record. Still, Cox found genuine mentors at Indiana among the math faculty: Cora Hennel, Schuyler Davisson, and Tobias Dantzig, all associated with the department’s Euclidean Circle. This student-and-faculty discussion group initiated Cox in 1915, making him its first African American member. He also served as secretary of the university’s Physics Club in his senior year and joined the historically Black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi in 1915.

He graduated in 1917 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, listed at the end of his class’s yearbook entry alongside the three other Black graduates.

After graduating, Cox enlisted in the U.S. Army and served roughly nine months in Des Moines, Iowa, and France during World War I, from 1918 to 1919; he later told his sons he’d enjoyed his military service.

Returning home, he worked briefly as a high school math tutor before taking a teaching position in the segregated schools of Kentucky. And in the fall of 1919, he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, to join the faculty at Shaw University as a professor of physics, chemistry, and biology, eventually becoming chairman of the university’s Department of Natural Sciences. He remained at Shaw for three years, until 1922, when he decided to pursue a doctorate and began applying to graduate programs.

Cox applied to Cornell University in December 1921, one of only seven American universities then offering a doctoral program in mathematics. His former Indiana professors wrote him letters of recommendation; Davisson wrote that Cox “surpasses any colored man I have known as a student in mathematics,” while Dantzig, in two separate letters, cautioned that Cox would likely encounter “certain difficulties… because of the fact that he is of the colored race” but predicted he would “develop into a man of whom the American mathematical world may be justly proud.”

Cornell’s own founding philosophy made it, in the words of one later retrospective, “a perfect fit” for Cox: founder Ezra Cornell had been an outspoken opponent of slavery who envisioned a university open to all who wished to be educated, and the school’s first president, Andrew Dickson White, had actively promoted the admission of women and people of color decades before Cox arrived.

Cox received the Erastus Brooks fellowship in mathematics, worth $400 a year, in the fall of 1924 and briefly followed Williams to McGill University in Montreal before returning to Cornell for the spring 1925 semester to finish his dissertation, “The Polynomial Solutions of the Difference Equation.”

He completed it that summer, and on Sept. 26, 1925, Cornell awarded him a Ph.D. in mathematics — making him the first Black person in the United States, and almost certainly the world, to earn a doctorate in the field. He was only the second Black Cornell graduate to earn any doctorate at the university, four years after Thomas Wyatt Turner became the first with a degree in biology.

Because doctoral degrees were still a relatively new institution in the United States, Williams urged Cox to submit his dissertation to universities abroad as a way of insulating his achievement from dispute, a fairly common practice at the time. Several institutions in England and Germany declined to consider the paper, almost certainly because of Cox’s race, before Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, Japan, accepted it; the paper wasn’t formally published, in the Tohoku Mathematical Journal until 1934, nearly a decade later.

Within two decades of Cox’s graduation, roughly two dozen more African American students had gone on to earn Cornell doctorates, including seven in math or physics. Notably, Cox had also once been offered a scholarship to study violin at the Prague Conservatory of Music, but chose to pursue mathematics instead.

Cox began his teaching career as a Ph.D. holder at the all-Black West Virginia State College in 1925, just weeks after receiving his degree. In 1929, Cox joined the mathematics faculty at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he would remain for close to four decades.

Cox was promoted to full professor in 1947, taught engineering science and war-management courses during World War II from 1942 to 1944, and became chair of Howard’s mathematics department in 1957, a post he held until 1961. He retired in 1965 at age 70, three years before his death; his portrait still hangs in the Howard mathematics department’s common room.

Over his lifetime, Cox published only two academic papers. He also became the first African American admitted into the American Mathematical Society. Those who knew him described a reserved, understated man — his son recalled that Cox “was not one to wear his achievements on his sleeve” and “didn’t do a whole lot of talking in general,” but that “when he did say something, it always made an impact.” Colleagues remembered him as conservative and patient, someone who always wore a tie to dinner.

Cox died in 1969 at age 73.

The National Association of Mathematicians established the annual Cox-Talbot Address in his honor, delivered at the organization’s national meetings, and Howard created the Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund to help Black students pursue graduate study in mathematics. In September 2025, on the 100th anniversary of his doctorate, Washington organized a two-day “Cox Centennial Celebration of 100 Years of Black Ph.D. Mathematicians” at Howard.

Based on reporting by The Carolinian.

Excitement filled the air at the inaugural Big Cat Classic, where the Clark Atlanta University Panthers defeated the Morehouse College Maroon Tigers 31-21 to earn their third consecutive victory against Morehouse.

Clark Atlanta struck first in explosive fashion when Trayvon Pinder broke free for a 94-yard rushing touchdown, giving the Panthers an early 7-0 lead.

Morehouse responded with a field goal before Chase Devaughn found the end zone on the ground, keeping the Maroon Tigers within striking distance.

The two teams continued exchanging blows through three quarters. Devaughn scored his second rushing touchdown of the afternoon to cut Clark Atlanta’s lead to three and give Morehouse an opportunity to complete the comeback.

The Panthers quickly answered.

Clark Atlanta quarterback Xzavier Jackson connected with Chry’Shawn Sellers for a 50-yard touchdown, swinging the momentum back toward the Panthers and putting Clark Atlanta firmly in control.

The Panthers held on from there, securing the 31-21 victory and another year of bragging rights over their neighbors across the street.

But even with the intensity surrounding the game, students believe the rivalry represents something larger than wins and losses.

“An example of what it is to disagree with one another and have a friendly battle but at the end of the day come back in love and unity so we can come together and elevate the Black community and push it forward,” said Demarion King, a senior at Morehouse College.

Morehouse and Clark Atlanta’s rivalry spans generations. In 1900, then-Atlanta Baptist College defeated then-Clark University 56-0 in their first rivalry game. Both schools shared a winning streak, with Clark Atlanta holding the longest at 12 games from 1942 to 1953.

For a few hours, Morehouse and Clark Atlanta battled for bragging rights. Despite the game’s final score, both institutions remain part of the larger AUC community.

Scores change, players graduate and another team eventually earns the bragging rights, but for those who experience the rivalry themselves, the tradition never really ends.

Based on reporting by Morehouse College – The Maroon Tiger.