Pensole Lewis College Slated To Be The First-Ever HBCU To Reopen, As Part Of $500 Million Detroit Investment
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For Target, the collaboration is part of its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) strategy, formed in 2020 to accelerate Target’s work to advance racial equity, and its new five-year, $100 million commitment to fuel the economic prosperity of Black communities. PLC is a privately funded operation, introducing a new financial model for higher education, aligning with major CSR initiatives from top companies and organizations who’ve demonstrated a vested interest in stable, economic futures for Black communities. For Target, the collaboration is part of its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) strategy, formed in 2020 to accelerate Target’s work to advance racial equity, and its new five-year, $100 millioncommitment to fuel the economic prosperity of Black communities. The college originally received its HBCU designation in 1987, and the reopening school is requesting HBCU recognition from the state. Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design is expected to open in 2022, on the campus of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. The Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design will be supported with philanthropic contributions from Target and the Gilbert Family Foundation.
Master's Degree Requirements
What pushed Edwards over the edge was when Largin mentioned the closed HBCU in Detroit. Edwards said he went online and read all the articles he could find about the college and the story behind Lewis finding the school and moving it to Detroit. Largin said he sent articles to Edwards to show him things were happening in Detroit. But he didn’t get any movement until the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, after which companies began pledging money to Black communities.
The Pensole Lewis College of Business & Design Petitions to Become the Nation’s First HBCU to Reopen
Historically Black colleges and universities throughout the country serve as pillars that sit at the intersection of education and culture, and this year a new institution will open in the city of Detroit. According to WXYZ Detroit, a former business school will be transformed into Michigan’s only HBCU. Rather than showing us your personal portfolio, we ask applicants to create an original piece of work based on a brief provided. At Pensole Lewis College, our admissions process is not the typical approach to bringing talented students to our programs.
About Our Founder
“Marring her history with our small brief history, and then solving a massive need for corporations as it pertains to product design,” Edwards said. The Wilberforce University graduate had previously taken a job as a secretary to the president at Selma University in Alabama, which allowed Lewis a look at the inner workings of running a college. “There’s no website that you can go to right now and research Black designers,” said Pensole Lewis’ president, Dr. D’Wayne Edwards. That’s something he’s confident Pensole Lewis can change, at least for the City of Detroit. We exist to lead & empower the progressive creative to create a better individual and collective future. Learn first hand from industry experts and professional designers working with your favorite brands.
LEGISLATION OFFICIALLY INTRODUCED TO RE-OPEN LEWIS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
“The Lewis College of Business was first created in 1928 as a secretarial school for Black women. After relocating to Detroit in 1939, it became a critical source of economic impact for the city’s Black community. GM, Ford, and Michigan Bell hired their first Black office employees from the school. 82 years later, and 14 years since it lost its accreditation as HBCU, I am honored to be resurrecting Violet T. Lewis’s legacy in Detroit,” says Dr. Edwards. “We create a curriculum based on, this is what it would take for you to get a job at this company. Once accepted, Pensole Lewis' first group of students will participate in a free five-week master class with Carharrt.
Students come from afar
FutureSole, PLC powered by Nike is an HBCU exclusive program created to discover, develop, and empower the future leaders & creators of the product industry. But the secretary of education would approve the designation, which makes a school eligible for federal funding. It is temporarily operating under the auspices of Detroit’s College for Creative Studies until the federal government recognizes it as one of the nation’s 100 HBCUs.
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The design was created via a contest with graduates from Detroit’s Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design. The winning design was submitted by Pensole Lewis College graduate and Detroit native, Matthew Holness, and features the Carhartt "C" logo and a blue automobile with a football license plate. Near the bottom is a pair of Carhartt gloves holding prominent industries in Detroit.
Studio Foundations
Edwards said Black people make up 10% of students in colleges or universities for design. Violet Lewis was determined to give her students a well-rounded education, which often included business travel to Lansing and D.C. She also co-founded the Gamma Phi Delta Sorority, offering further chances to network and give back through philanthropy, something very important to her. In the midst of the Great Depression, she founded a college designed for Black women seeking secretary skills. Some of its first graduates landed jobs at companies like Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and Michigan Bell.
It’s designers helped create the curriculum, something Edwards feels really sets this model apart. We prepare the largest talent pool of designers to enter the industry and strive to make it better for the next generation, leaving our industry better than when we entered it. PLC provides a unique educational experience that teaches students the skills they need to thrive in the product creation industry. When the Pensole Lewis School gets HBCU recognition, federal law requires it be a junior or community college or offer an educational pathway to a bachelor’s degree.
Enrollment for PENSOLE Lewis’s program is expected to open December of this year. Whether you are just starting out or want to further develop specific skills, our Design Essentials course materials offer self-guided online instruction classes for all skill levels. “Thank you to Governor Whitmer and all of our partners for helping the grandchildren of Violet T. Lewis, Pensole and College for Creative Studies establish an HBCU in the state of Michigan,” Edwards said.
When he heard that PENSOLE was relocating to Michigan, he applied and got accepted. He said learned from elite designers and teachers about designing functional workwear shoes during the five-week class. The students from outside Michigan came from places such as the Caribbean, Canada, and England, and stayed at the Hotel St. Regis Detroit in the New Center neighborhood during the five-week course. While the class included five women, most of the students were African American men. Eleven students from Detroit and 19 others from across the country participated in the inaugural Pensole Lewis College master class.
Dan Gilbert — founder and chairman of Rocket Cos., which owns Rock Ventures — encouraged Largin to convince Edwards to move PENSOLE to Detroit. For Carhartt, the company’s involvement was natural since it started a design project with Edwards at the Portland school, said Ben Ewy, the brand’s vice president of global product design, research and development. His model also differs by working directly with industry leaders to help create intensive training known as “master classes” for students to learn the culture of the company and become a pipeline of workers, Edwards said. The companies co-create the curriculum and pay the $13,500 tuition of each student and the lodging for those who come to the college from outside Metro Detroit. MDes students are expected to complete , a professional development requirement for the program. Requires students to engage in an experience outside of an MDes course or studio where they apply what they have learned in a broader context.
While this will be the first time a closed HBCU has re-opened, PLC will be the fourth HBCU currently operating as part of another institution. Among the college’s founding supporters are Dan and Jennifer Gilbert via The Gilbert Family Foundation, and leading retailer Target. The first class was sponsored by Carhartt with a focus on footwear and clothing design. Other brands that are expected to sponsor master classes in the future include top footwear brands such as Nike, Jordan, Adidas, New Balance, Timberland, Vans, and Asics, along with apparel companies such as North Face and J.Crew, Edwards said. The school was brought back to life in one of the nation’s largest majority-Black cities, which is in the midst of its own revival, and aims to offer educational opportunities, especially for the African American community. Nearly a decade after Michigan’s only Black college closed, a new chapter of the school began last month when it reopened with its first class of 30 students and a new mission to partner with industries to create a pipeline of job-ready workers trained in design.
It also must be accredited or pre-accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association. Edwards wanted to do more of that work, so he left his shoe designer position in 2011. He created his model of teaching product design and started teaching with 41 students from around the globe. He started guiding these young people and created a competition at Nike, Future Sole, to identify young people with talent who didn’t have a chance to go to college.
“It really resonated with me because we had a lot of similarities with trying to start our own school,” Edwards said. “Growing up in the 80s, with no Google or Instagram or social media, I couldn’t find other people who looked like me who did it,” Edwards said. Edwards long wanted to work in design when he was growing up in Inglewood, California, southwest of Los Angeles, as the youngest of six children raised by a single mother. Isaiah Walker has spent the past decade trying to channel his passion for design into a career. UC Berkeley has one of the strongest and most generous financial aid programs in the country...
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