On February 6, 2017, I had an important conversation with our UNCF Senior Vice-President for Public Policy & Government Affairs, Mrs. Cheryl Smith, regarding the President's planned agenda for Higher Education.  On February 3, President Donald Trump's Department of Education representatives extended an invitation to the Presidents of HBCUs to attend a meeting at the White House on February 27, and to meet with Speaker Paul Ryan and Congressional Representatives on February 28.

The purpose of the meeting is to confirm a national agenda for assisting HBCU's continue and strengthen their contribution to the nation's graduation rates. While only 3% of institutions of higher education in America, HBCUs graduate annually 21% of all African Americans receiving Bachelors Degrees. The Trump White House has informed us that they are working on a new and stronger Executive Order on HBCUs. The UNCF Government Affairs Office, along with HBCU partner organizations, provided input to White House staff on the top priorities for a new HBCU Executive Order, including a request to increase Pell grant funding.

I will be attending the meetings in Washington and will keep you informed of any and all developments affecting our Oakwood mission.  And by all means, please say a special prayer for the February 27 and 28 meetings.

We are convinced that God is strategically steering our institution in our industry recovery program.

Many of us remember when Oakwood operated numerous industries, when students could work their way through Oakwood, and our industries taught valuable workplace skills. In speaking to thousands of our alumni and friends annually, virtually everyone says "We need to bring the industries back." However, our 21st century industries cannot simply be a return to traditional industry because our era has changed drastically.

In 2011, we issued a leadership challenge to our University community: "We will launch plans that are destined to fail, except God intervene."  We undertook the strategic initiative to create a self-sustaining institution.  In reducing our dependency on tuition revenue, in faith we set a two-fold operational purpose:

Oakwood Farms is designed to work in concert with the UNCF Career Pathways Grant (CP-GEM) and Healthy Campus 2020. The CP-GEM plan is creating an aligned and comprehensive strategy for facilitating students' success in matriculation, graduation, and workforce placement.  HC2020 seeks to make Oakwood the healthiest campus in America by imparting to our students intentional health management skills purposed to optimize each student's personal health status. 

Click picture to see a short video.

Oakwood Farms will design programs to support CP-GEM and HC2020 efforts in seeking to help students develop the 21st century career skills, tools, and health habits they will need to thrive and, in so doing, add measurable and significant value to their communities, employers, and our university mission. Alongside our professional farm employees, we plan to engage our students as managerial apprentices and agribusiness interns, and train them in entrepreneurship, and as health and diet educators.

We have asked Ms. Sabrina Cotton, our Vice President for Finance, to coordinate this initiative, and we have already hired Mr. Artis Sydney to lead our effort.  Mr. Sydney brings to our operation the skill sets of both a farmer and grocer. Having successfully operated Huntsville's "Garden Cove" for more than 30 years, God has brought him full circle back to Oakwood, where he began his career as the director of the Grounds Department in the 1980s.

We will set up a "pick and pay" stations, with 10% of all we produce being tithed to the underserved in our Huntsville community. Our first planting of the season will be blueberries. Our first year is an investment year. The plan is to begin making a profit in the second year. The goal is to hire students, and to incorporate a focused academic program. We are specifically linking Oakwood Farms and Student Career Success into a student centered enrichment program .  More details will follow in later communication.