On the first day of Black History Month earlier this year, when America awoke to the news of bomb threats made against historically Black colleges, JP Morgan Chase announced a half-million-dollar grant to Louisville’s HBCU, Simmons College of Kentucky. JPMC is funding Simmons and our partner, Louisville Future of Work, to build data science into our curriculum for two reasons: First, because of national research by the Brookings Institution, which also looked specifically at Louisville, JPMC knows Louisville is right at the top of the list of cities unprepared for an economy where workers must know how to manipulate data. Second, they know that Louisville, with a large percentage of Black residents, has an untapped pool of talent in data-related fields where Blacks are woefully underrepresented.
Those of us who worked on the grant found it easy to convince JPMC to give us a half-million dollars. It was as obvious to JPMC as it is to us that Louisville cannot face the workforce crisis on its horizon if it fails to engage the intellectual capacity of neglected parts of the community like West Louisville, or if it fails to utilize the best tool in any city’s workforce development toolbox — an HBCU. They were biased in our direction before they ever met us, because JPMC already knew that while HBCUs graduate only 3% of college students, we produce 25% of all African-American STEM graduates and half of all Black school teachers.
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JPMC first learned of our HBCU a mere six months before they made the award. So why did they so easily spot our capacity in six months, while Simmons (founded 1879) existed 150 years before a local foundation invested in Simmons? JPMC saw the capacity of our HBCU because they are focused on the workforce of the future and are not saddled with the local biases of the past. Thankfully, as local employers and foundations likewise look to the future, they too have awakened to what Louisville loses when thousands are left on the sidelines as our city competes with other cities for skilled employees, and they too know that Louisville’s HBCU is vital. Employers have told us how much they need employees who can fill their skilled jobs. Humana, for example, is paying existing employees, who already have college degrees, to learn the very sorts of skills JPMC is funding us to teach. Superintendent Pollio has said repeatedly that JCPS will never find enough diverse teachers to connect with today’s students without Simmons funded to teach them.
Thankfully, local foundations have also begun supporting us like never before, and local corporations are offering many paid internships. With this support, we are expanding our campus and our curriculum. Within 48 hours this February, we both closed on the purchase of the original Central High School building next to our campus, and we received word from our accrediting body that they approved the establishment of three new majors, two of which are in STEM.
But here is one more thing I want local foundations and employers to know. My students at Simmons are valiant. They have grit. Our percentage of first-generation college students is double the national average. Our students climb mountains to obtain their degrees.
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In my younger years, I put in the work to attain my Phi Beta Kappa key at Rhodes College and then my Ph.D. at Baylor. But unlike my students, I never had to be valiant. My academic success as a white male from an upper-middle-class family is laudable but predictable. I merely stayed on a track that was built for me. Not so for my at-risk students. For six years I have had the joy of teaching Simmons’ students, who are as intellectually agile as my classmates were at Rhodes. My students do not lack ability, but many have been thrown off track academically by the structures of this city and state most call home. Even so, they persevere. And more and more I am seeing them soar as they move beyond Simmons into graduate programs and careers.
Louisville’s future is at risk, because we are failing to train a workforce for tomorrow’s jobs, and because we are overlooking valiant candidates ready to be trained. I pray that too little imagination and too many preconceptions won’t blind our too often provincial city to what JPMC and others already know: A strong Louisville must have a strong HBCU.

Dr. Chris Caldwell is the Chair of Religious Studies for Simmons College of Kentucky.
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