‌James V. Koch is Board of Visitors Professor of Economics Emeritus and president emeritus at Old Dominion University; Omari H. Swinton (photograph) is chair, director of graduate studies, and professor in the Department of Economics at Howard University. Their book Vital and Valuable: The Relevance of HBCUs to American Life and Education describes the distinctive features of historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, and positions them in the broader higher education landscape. Using data on admissions, enrollment, student performance, debt, and spending, they recommend policies to strengthen HBCUs.

This is the second event of the Academic Innovation for the Public Good 2023 book conversation series, co-organized by Stanford Digital Education and Trinity College.