PRAIRIE VIEW — Prairie View A&M University has big plans for Sandra Bland Parkway, recently named in honor of the 28-year-old woman who died in the Waller County Jail.
The historically black university will spend millions of dollars to build retail shops, student housing, entertainment centers and more along the road that winds into campus.
The investment in infrastructure is a sign that Prairie View A&M is bucking a trend faced by most historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.
Where some have struggled to pay the bills and seen enrollment plummet, Prairie View has spent millions on new buildings since 2001 and kept the student population stable.
“In most instances, you would not call flat enrollment a victory, but in the HBCU environment, where people’s enrollments are taking enormous hits, we’re appreciative of it,” Prairie View A&M President George Wright said.
When the national media descended upon Prairie View this past summer to cover the fallout from the Bland case, some outside the university raised the concern that the campus would suffer, particularly in enrollment. The campus has long had a difficult relationship with surrounding Waller County, and some feared a backlash over tense police relations could linger, even though Bland wasn’t arrested on campus.
Wright fought that perception, calling it a bias against HBCUs. He worked to keep up students’ confidence, make improvements and protect the university’s reputation. The school has had some advantages to work with, too. Unlike most HBCUs, Prairie View A&M is under the umbrella of a large statewide system and has access to the Permanent University Fund, the state’s public endowment worth billions of dollars that has provided a reliable stream of revenue.
