Black Leadership Initiative

Society as a whole lacks the presence of college educated Black leaders in all kinds of career areas from STEM, Education, Business, and Medicine/Healthcare. Much of the cause of this comes from the lack of college preparation, societal struggles, financial support, and sense of belonging at US colleges and universities. K-12 schools in and surrounding Indianapolis and Marion County also struggle with mentor/family support, school budget concerns, proper teacher preparation, and disciplinary issues which all cause for a lack of major insignificant educational success for Black students.  

Marian University committed itself to promoting access to higher education and ensuring student success.  In its efforts to increase access and success with the 15% Black student population, Marian University is launching the Black Leadership Initiative. The Initiative will work to develop tuition support opportunities to deserving students. The tuition support, combined with purposeful programming and individualized support, will help ensure the academic success of each scholar.

Marian University Black Student Enrollment Growth:

2021: 13.1%

2022: 14.5%

2023: 15.1%

Mission

The Black Leadership Initiative (BLI) is designed to develop emerging Black leaders while increasing institutional retention and graduation rates through intentional support services and tuition support opportunities.

Foundation

The framework for the BLI includes 3 distinct pillars:

Pillar 1: Recruit. Marian University will put extensive efforts in recruiting Black Leadership Initiative program participants. (Browning, Bowen, and others)

Pillar 2: Retain. The retention approach for the initiative is based on comprehensive, collaborative, and coordinated support. Students will be required to participate in research-based high impact practices and programming that have proven to increase the retention of persistence of Black Leadership Program participants.

Pillar 3: Sustain. To sustain the program, tuition support and program dollars will need to be invested. Individual support, grant funding and foundation support will be key in generating an initiative that can be sustained over time.