D’Wayne Edwards continues to make history. The Pensole Design Academy founder is set to reopen a historic HBCU, marking the first time that a closed historically Black college and university will reopen.
The Lewis College of Business, founded by the late Violet T. Lewis, closed in 2013. Edwards, the controlling stockholder for the university, is bringing new life to the Detroit HBCU.
“We’re going down uncharted territory in two different lanes,” Edwards said in an interview with Footwear News. “I am not a politician. I am not even interested in politics, and this is really my first time meeting politicians, and they’ve been phenomenal,” Edwards said. “They all knew about the school and were sad that it closed, and now they’re excited that someone wants to take it on and reopen it because of how much it meant to the city of Detroit. GM and Ford, and Michigan Bell, all of their first Black office employees, came from this college. To be able to reopen a college that had so much significance to the city and paved the way for diversity within its largest industries, that’s part of history that should have never went away.”
Although not yet finalized, Edwards is hopeful that the school’s doors will open sooner rather than later.
The school will partner with College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit to gain legal and legislative approval needed to establish the Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design. Before it moves to a permanent campus of its own in Detroit, PLC will be located in CCS’s A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education, which will open in March 2022, with enrollment expected to open in December.
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(Image via Pensole Design Academy)
