MEMPHIS, Tennessee —
By now, high school seniors across the country are preparing to graduate, many without an official ceremony. However, what about college? Due to COVID-19, spring college tours have been canceled, but two historically black college graduates came up with an idea where students and parents can still explore some options.
“A lot of students were emailing us about the fact that they couldn’t do college fairs so me and a group of alumni were like we should just create a virtual tour for the students,” said Danielle James, President of Chicago HBCU Alumni Alliance.
And that’s what Danielle James, a Howard University Alum and Brianna Pulliam, an Xavier Alum did. They rallied up support and alumni from nearly two dozen historically black colleges to put on a virtual tour Saturday, April 18.
“We only had 3,800 people at first. We were just cutting it off there, but then it got bigger so like the waiting list was up to 8,000 people that had registered for the waiting list, “ James explained.
11,000 people have registered already. The tour will feature schools like LeMoyne-Owen College, Tennessee and Jackson State Universities.
Here’s how it will work, administrators and volunteers will be throughout the campus, sharing information about their school, the application process and scholarships. They’ll be doing this through streaming platforms.
“We were looking at multiple streams so basically all of our presenters will be in one central webinar platform and then everyone on the campus will be streaming from different locations,” said Brianna Pulliam, Co-creator and member of Chicago HBCU Alumni Alliance.
Each school will have roughly 15 minutes for its presentation and then they’ll open it up for questions from prospective students.
“We are doing it through zoom but then we are also working with You Tube, Facebook Live so it’s a couple different places now because a lot of people have been seeing it and they’ve been posting it everywhere,” James said.
And because of the high interest, the ladies have decided to do a second virtual tour with more colleges and universities.
“It’s really crazy, I actually had this idea like two years ago and I guess it wasn’t the right timing,” Pulliam said.
If you’re interested in registering, click here.