Michigan’s only HBCU is a part of a consortium of Historically Black Colleges and Universities launching “eHBCU” on Tuesday.

Pensole Lewis College joins Alabama State University, Delaware State University and the Southern University A&M College System in the effort.

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eHBCU offers students across the country the chance to earn degrees and certification online from accredited universities. eHBCU becomes the nation’s 108th HBCU. 

Dr. Violet Temple Lewis founded the Lewis College of Business in Indianapolis in 1928 to train Black secretaries. The branch opened in Detroit in 1938 would eventually become Michigan’s only HBCU. Lewis closed in 2015.

Accomplished footwear designer Dr. D’Wayne Edwards opened the Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design in 2015, continuing the legacy of the Lewis College of Business as an HBCU. Pensole Lewis offers degrees in footwear and apparel design and in color strategy, as well as design-related certificate programs.

For more information about Pensole Lewis, visit plcdetroit.com. 

Other headlines for Tuesday, June 24, 2025:

• BridgeDetroit and the Detroit Parks Coalition have invited mayoral candidates to a forum focused on parks and public spaces — and they want your questions! The forum will take place from 6-8 p.m. July 24, at Palmer Park. Questions must be submitted by June 30. 
• Detroit vendors are invited to a community outreach event with District 2 Councilwoman Angela Whitfield Calloway on Wednesday to learn how to secure contracts with the city. Businesses that offer security, janitorial, vehicle supply and other services are encouraged to attend the event, taking place from 2:30-4 p.m. at the Northwest Activities Center, 18100 Meyers Rd.
• There is still time to join the Detroit Public Library’s summer reading challenge, with a variety of online and in-person events and programming. Many branches are also offering a summer lunch program in partnership with Forgotten Harvest. Call your local library branch for lunch dates and times. 

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

Last month, then University of Michigan President Santa Ono announced his resignation from the college after accepting a role leading the University of Florida.

But despite the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees voting unanimously to approve Ono as the school’s 14th president, the Florida Board of Governors — which oversees the state’s universities — voted against it, reversing the decision.

David Jesse, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, joined The Metro to discuss this unprecedented reversal and the political motivation behind it. 

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A number of universities are worried about funding cuts that are coming from the Trump administration. That includes those in Michigan. 

Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University collaborate — sharing research and attracting businesses to their campuses. Late last month, Michigan Tech joined the re-branded group that’s now called Research Universities for Michigan. 

At the 2025 Mackinac Policy Conference, presidents from three of the four schools spoke with WDET’s Russ McNamara: MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz, Michigan Tech President Rick Koubec and Wayne State President Kimberly Andrews Espy. 

This isn’t the only way schools are collaborating. Although it’s not yet supported by administrative leadership, faculty at many Big Ten universities are advocating for their respective leadership to sign a NATO-like agreement. It would allow the universities to share attorneys and pool financial resources in case President Donald Trump’s administration targets one of them. 

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Longtime academic Santa Ono was rejected Tuesday for the University of Florida presidency by the state university system board amid sharp criticism from political conservatives about his past support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and other initiatives they view as unacceptable liberal ideology.

The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s universities, voted 10-6 against Ono, who was most recently president of the University of Michigan. The University of Florida Board of Trustees had voted unanimously in May to approve Ono as the school’s 14th president, and it is unprecedented for the governors to reverse such an action.

Now the search will start all over.

Ono’s proposed contract included a number of ideological requirements, such as how well he stopped programs that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. He was to cooperate with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Office of Government Efficiency — similar to the office created by President Donald Trump — and appoint other university officials and deans who are “firmly aligned” with Florida’s approach.

Several prominent conservatives raised questions about Ono before the vote over pro-Palestinian protests, climate change efforts, gender ideology and DEI programs at the University of Michigan and his previous academic positions.

These actions, Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said on the X social platform, show “he is willing to appease and prioritize far-left activists over ensuring students are protected and receive a quality education.” Others raising objections include Donald Trump Jr. and Florida GOP U.S. Reps. Byron Donalds, Greg Steube and Jimmy Patronis. Donalds is a Republican candidate for governor.

Writing in Inside Higher Ed, Ono said he supported DEI initiatives at first because they aim was “equal opportunity and fairness for every student.”

“But over time, I saw how DEI became something else — more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success,” Ono wrote, adding that he eventually limited DEI offices at Michigan. “I believe in Florida’s vision for higher education.”

DeSantis, a Republican who has pushed reforms in higher education to eliminate what he calls “woke” policies such as DEI, did not take a public stand on Ono but did say at a recent news conference that some of his statements made the governor “cringe.”

Ono faced similar pointed questions at Tuesday’s meeting — especially from former Republican state House speakers Paul Renner and Jose Oliva — leading board member Charles Lydecker to object to the procedure.

“We have never used this as a forum to interrogate. This is not a court of law. Candidly, this process does not seem fair to me,” Lydecker said.

Oliva, however, questioned how to square Ono’s many past statements about hot-button cultural issues with his more conservative stance now that he sought the Florida job.

“Now we are told to believe you are now abandoning an entire ideological architecture,” Oliva said. “We are asking someone to lead our flagship university. I don’t understand how it becomes unfair.”

Steube, writing on X, praised the board for its decision.

“Great news for my alma mater and the state of Florida! The Board of Governors heard us loud and clear: Santa Ono was the wrong choice for UF,” the congressman said.

Ono was to replace Kent Fuchs, who became the school’s temporary, interim president last summer after ex-U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse stepped down. Sasse left the U.S. Senate, where he had represented Nebraska, to become the university’s president in 2023.

Sasse announced in July he was leaving the job after his wife was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Later reports surfaced that Sasse gave six former staffers and two former Republican officials jobs with salaries that outstripped comparable positions and spent over $1.3 million on private catering for lavish dinners, football tailgates and extravagant social functions in his first year on the job.

Ono is also the former president of the University of British Columbia and the University of Cincinnati.