A Year in Review: Cisco's Investment in Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs)
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Posted By: Reginald Culpepper on September 20, 2022 by Maria Martinez Cisco is bringing its Social Justice blueprint to life for HBCUs The last several years were turbulent for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Student displacements due to the pandemic, cyberattacks, and aging infrastructure have created an unprecedented need for financial and technical support. When we announced Cisco’s Social Justice blueprint in September 2020, we promised to be bold and deliberate in our support of the Black community – including a resolute commitment to help HBCUs recover and flourish post-COVID. We showed the depth of our intent in 2021 with our pledge of $150 million to help the recovery and resiliency of HBCUs in the United States. This is the largest corporate investment of its kind in HBCU history, and we’re already putting this funding to work in partnership with Student Freedom Initiative. Our impact focuses on four critical areas:
Cisco will train and mentor AACPC partners on how to conduct NIST Cybersecurity Assessments at HBCUs. Promoting success before and beyond graduation Cisco Networking Academy, an industry standard IT education program, is now available at 34 HBCUs, with training for 18 HBCUs taking place this month. Our goal is to introduce Cisco Networking Academy to all HBCUs with free instructor training, which will increase student recruitment opportunities. Advancing information sharing and engagement The Cisco HBCU Advisory Board is composed of 11 Cisco leaders from across our business. The Advisory Board will continue to bring Cisco leadership together to share and create best practices, engage our community stakeholders, and expand company-wide awareness about our commitment to our HBCUs’ success. Where We’re Going The past year has been a learning journey for certain. We move forward with these lessons and a conviction that our efforts are having an impact. Xavier University of Louisiana was the first university to complete a Cisco-sponsored NIST Assessment: “We received $1.2 million in software resources to install on our campus at no cost to the university. We are allowed to lease that hardware and software for cybersecurity for a period of 5 years. That will enable me to build an adequate budget for cybersecurity moving forward. It will also allow me to secure and certify in a much shorter time frame. When I say a much shorter time frame – most HBCU’s compete for technology resources, staff, experts to do much of this infrastructure work. What we are doing, probably in 12 months, would have taken me about 36 months to do with the staffing and resources that I normally have.”
—Dr. Mable J. Moore, VP & Chief Information Officer, Xavier University of Louisiana
We will continue to empower change like this, guided by the long-term goals we set:
We invite you – and our entire Cisco ecosystem –
to join us on the Student Freedom Initiative! If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Reginald Culpepper
President, Fulfillment and Web Services, HBCUCONNECT Clark Atlanta University class of 1998 Member Since September 2000 |
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