Maryland’s historically black colleges need more funding to assist in transitioning adjunct professors to full-time faculty, members of the Legislative Black Caucus said Thursday morning in Annapolis.
The Black Caucus requested an additional $2 million for each of Maryland’s four historically black institutions – Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. The additional funding would add to the collective $194.7 million they would receive in the governor’s proposed 2014 fiscal year budget, which is an increase of 7.7 percent from last year.
Morgan State University was the only one of the four to receive any additional funding in Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed budget released Wednesday. Morgan State is slotted to receive an additional $1.5 million.O’Malley’s office could not be reached for comment.“One of the issues identified among the historically black colleges and universities is that there’s a large number of adjunct professors,” said Delegate Aisha Braveboy, D-Prince George’s, and Chair of the Legislative Black Caucus.Each of the HBCUs have identified the high number of adjunct professors as one of the areas of concern for them, Braveboy said.“Adjunct professors are just that, they’re adjunct,” Braveboy said. “They don’t have office hours many of them, so they don’t provide the same student support as a full-time professor with office hours and who is consistently on campus.”
Braveboy said the Black Caucus plans to work with the Appropriations Committee in the Senate and the Budget and Taxation Committee in the House to improve student support at HBCUs.