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June 30, 2026

Inside Johnson C. Smith University’s high-stakes bet on its own future

There are two numbers that define Johnson C. Smith University right now, and most coverage has only told you about one of them. The first number is $80 million what JCSU stands to receive through the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative, a $250 million Charlotte public-private partnership built to transform the university into a top-tier, career-focused… Continue reading Inside Johnson C. Smith University’s high-stakes bet on its own future

June 30, 2026

Before the Yard : What Cheryl Pollard built and what it cost her to get here

Nine weeks every semester, recruiting students for institutions that needed her to believe in them hard enough to convince someone else to. She was an admissions recruiter then not an executive, not an associate vice chancellor just a woman from Wilmington, North Carolina, who had not yet left the state she was born in, driving… Continue reading Before the Yard : What Cheryl Pollard built and what it cost her to get here

June 20, 2026

How Kent Beatty Built the Stage That Built Us

There are names that show up in the history books, and then there are the names that held the foundation together so those books could be written. Wilbert “Kent” Beatty is one of those foundational names and if you were on the yard at WSSU in the early 2000s until now 2026, you already know… Continue reading How Kent Beatty Built the Stage That Built Us

June 18, 2026

The Blueprint in the Binder: Mo Wright and the WSSU Legacy That Keeps Leading

There is a particular kind of HBCU leader that the yard never forgets not because they were loud, not because they chased cameras or collected titles, but because they built something real and then kept building long after graduation, long after the applause faded, long after anyone was keeping score. Mo Wright is that kind… Continue reading The Blueprint in the Binder: Mo Wright and the WSSU Legacy That Keeps Leading

June 18, 2026

The Burke Standard: What a Master Educator Taught Us About Professional Excellence

There are professors who teach a syllabus. Then there are educators who teach a standard and the difference reveals itself not in the classroom, but in every room you walk into for the rest of your life. Dr. D’Walla Simmons-Burke of Winston-Salem State University built one of those standards. As Director of Choral Activities and… Continue reading The Burke Standard: What a Master Educator Taught Us About Professional Excellence

June 17, 2026

Dr. Dennis Felder and the Pipeline That Ran Through the Yard: A Retirement Tribute

There is a particular kind of institutional knowledge that does not transfer through handbooks, does not survive reorganizations, and cannot be replicated by anyone who did not build it slowly, over decades, through repeated acts of investment in people who were not yet certain they deserved it. Winston-Salem State University is losing that kind of… Continue reading Dr. Dennis Felder and the Pipeline That Ran Through the Yard: A Retirement Tribute

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