Coppin State president Dr. Anthony Jenkins tells Nestor about the growth and passion at Coppin State University on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour at Faidley’s Seafood in Lexington Market. And save the date for the big LSU and Angel Reese visit home to West Baltimore on December 20th!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, crab cakes, maryland, eagles, year, baltimore, institution, campus, education, live, cop, great, hbcus, compensate, potomac, growth, baseball stadium, university, days, families
SPEAKERS
Dr. Anthony Jenkins, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
W n s t, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We’re positively at fade Lee’s. We’re at the world famous Lexington market. I can only see since 1782. I see it right out here. We are a pack of street on the backside of the old market the new markets about 100 yards to our left here. Fantastic experience there but we’re still doing it here. And I will shed lots of tears when they pick up all of these signs and move it into the new market. But Dr. Anthony Jenkins from Compton is here. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery we are playing the Ravens scratch offs. It’s the first time I’ve I’ve seen them I literally just opened them today. We have these we’re gonna have them a Coco’s in two weeks we’re gonna have a drug city next month gonna have it State Fair we’re having here at families as well and later on, given these way our friends when donation I have the floppy hat, the fun floppy hat feels full seasonal right? This feels like a summer hat. I’m gonna have to talk to the folks on weathernation 866 90 nation you buy to you get to free I got my Windows last year and especially on these beautiful fall mornings with the window open and my kitty cat feeling that breeze going on pick appreciation and weather nation and Jiffy Lube. They’re going to be sponsored us here throughout the fall on our merrily crabcake tour. So appreciation to them people out and everybody there. I had my car a Jiffy Lube a couple of weeks ago for Mayor Boulevard had a great experience there. So shout out to them. Compensate has been our partners for a decade our flagship we do their basketball games. We’ve done some other sports as well. Big big doings in the athletic program. But for you, you run the whole banana right? So when I bring you on, just at the top for anybody out in our audience who they’re familiar with cop and they see you on the news they know about the basketball program. What kind of an institution is compensating for from an educational standpoint? What what do you feed into the world? It makes the world great.
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 01:48
You know, first of all, you know Coppin is a dynamic University. We have a unique place and the landscape of higher education within the state of Maryland. As I like to say, you know, we are a small university that provide our students a large university experience, whether it’s a hands on research, leadership opportunities, internships with Fortune 500 companies, federal government agencies, these are the things that we offer our students. We have nationally ranked academic programs, we are nationally recognized for our academic programs in Social Work, Health Care, stem, criminal justice, computer science, business management, Forbes ranked our psychology program, one of the best in the country. I was nursing to
Nestor Aparicio 02:39
get some psych profs on here and fix myself. Do you know our
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 02:43
our nursing program is ranked in the top or fifth in the estate, number one among all Maryland HBCUs. And we have faculty who are thought leaders and the Forerunners in their respective disciplines. We accept students and we transform them into scholars, we have students who are coming to us from over 35 Different states, the District of Columbia and 30 international countries,
Nestor Aparicio 03:12
I’ve always been shocked when I’m just with your athletic program alone. Like I have Sherman, and I’d be talking about his kids. And I’d be up we’ll compensate sports and stuff on the roster be like Sherman’s kids from why
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 03:26
we have kids from Hawaii, you crane from all over the place, right. And so our brand is growing. And that’s in large part because of the academics and our athletics. And so we are we are extremely proud of them. But you know, one of the things that I’m also proud of is that we are the most affordable four year university in the state of Maryland. And our students come to us and they leave with loan debt that’s lower than the national average. And we are providing more need based and merit based scholarships to drive that cost down even further. Because I believe costs should never be a barrier to a quality education. Right? Money should never be a reason that a young person or anyone can’t finish their degree. There’s too many resources out here. And we are committed at competent to making sure not only are you in the right environment, and you have the right nurturing wraparound support services, but that you also have that mentoring and the financial support to help you finish your journey. And that’s what we’ve been focusing on.
Nestor Aparicio 04:39
What’s it mean to be an HBCU at this point, I mean for for funding for location for attractiveness to young African American students that maybe could go to Maryland maybe go to UMC but now I want to go to Morgan I want to go to cop and that’s where I want to be. I would think by the time they get to you Your door, they know what you’re about, right? I mean, they’ve done they’ve they’ve they’ve done you’re, you’re attractive to them already if you’re in front of them, right.
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 05:06
That’s right. That’s right. And so, you know, I think, you know, first and foremost, you know, HBCUs have always played a significant part in the landscape of higher education. And Brown versus the Board of Education decision, didn’t force HBCUs hands to be diverse. We’ve always been diverse. That’s a part of who we are. That is the value of our institutions. And so what I talk also a lot about is diversity and multiculturalism. Because you can have diversity and not have multiculturalism, but you can’t have multiculturalism and not have diversity. Hold on, hold on,
Nestor Aparicio 05:43
hold on, hold on that chicken egg there. Hold on, let’s start start that again. All right, we could do that slow, too early. Drink of water, crab cakes, and fried oysters,
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 05:54
those crowds divert you go ahead. This is why our education is so impactful, because we believe in preparing students, for the multicultural world that they’re going to inherit, right. So we just don’t focus on diversity, because you can have diversity, and not have multiculturalism understood, but you can’t have multiculturalism and not have diversity. So the diversity piece is the is the smaller aspect of how we prepare our students, we prepare them in a multicultural, multigenerational environment, because that’s the world that they’re going to inherit. It is not just about black and white, it is about you understanding different individuals who come from different places who think differently, look differently, and engaging with them and learning about them. You can’t lead individuals that you’ve never taken the time to learn about them and their culture. You can’t empower and engage those individuals, if you have a very skewed perception of who they are. Or if you don’t know who they are at all. The The world is changing so quickly, that as an institution of higher education, I believe we have a moral and ethical obligation to immerse our students in that type of learning environment. That’s what we’re doing at Kopan. We’re also being more intrusive and how we educate our students with more innovation and more active learning. We are using things like virtual reality, where our criminal justice students can walk through real crime scenes where our nursing students can look at organs and identify if they are healthy disease, our rehabilitation counseling, students are working with students with schizophrenia and also in Alzheimer’s, no, no.
Nestor Aparicio 07:58
That’s okay. multiple personalities. No,
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 08:00
I’m forgetting autism, autism. And so they are working with students in real world settings using virtual reality. Right, we are pushing the boundaries of learning and education at Kopan. So
Nestor Aparicio 08:16
some of this right, yeah, I mean, if I went back to school like Rodney Dangerfield,
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 08:20
this would be completely different to you, right? Because that is the beauty of providing a quality education that transforms a student so that they’re better prepared for the challenges that they’re going to be asked to address. And so that’s where we are at competent. And it’s not, again, about 21 22% of our students who come to us self identify as something other than African American. And so students understand a quality education as a quality education. The, the HBCU component of Kopan is significant because we’re historically black, we’re not exclusively black, right enough. And so students understand, I can go here and get a quality education. And I don’t have to break the bank, you know, grad reports did did a study recently where they looked at all 55 four year colleges and universities in the state of Maryland, and they looked at where a student was one year after graduation, with regards to their career field and their salary. Kopan is ranked seventh, outrank in a lot of larger institutions in the state and more expensive and more expensive. So as I tell folks, don’t pay more and get less be smart about how you invest your resources and the return on that investment. That is what content is about and we’re also making sure that we are better community partners. I’m excited about where we are what we have going on
Nestor Aparicio 09:52
Dr. Anthony Jenkins zero were fade Lee’s I know because of the smell I know because these are here as well. Alright, so everybody Your background where you’re from because we did that in the first time, but give give your pathway here because it didn’t begin with crabcakes. And Joe,
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 10:07
I wish I wish but but close because I was born and raised in Washington DC, the southeast side of Washington so you don’t have real crabcakes down there. Well, they don’t have they don’t have real crabcakes but they come over here and get something just pulling them off Shawn
Nestor Aparicio 10:20
Merriman on the other day, and he’s DMV, I’m like, you know crabcakes stop right about Columbia. You know what I mean? A boo boo we Columbia Laurel. There’s like a line there. I had the horse crabcake I’ve ever had my life and Potomac. Did you? Yeah. And I don’t want to bag on it. But here’s here’s what they did. And I told this story last month. Go ahead. Well, so the Restaurant Association mural by the way, it’s Restaurant Week. Take advantage by local Eat Local, take care of our people. Right. And they sponsored us last couple years for this. They gave me this place last August. It was a little carry out. We do fried oysters. I don’t do deviled eggs are yours? I don’t know. I don’t eat those. Thank you. So I was I was doing 31 crab cakes and 31 days last August. This is like day 22 as a place down the Potomac and I’m not going to out the place because it was a it was in a market plaza. daimyo appreciate this, as well as high end sort of way the food deli he was a high end boutique key. You know, they have refrigeration with different things. So it’s a we ship crabcakes and I’m like, sort Dan Snyder lives it’s down. It’s total Washington command. You’re down there way down Potomac right. River Road area, right. Almost going across the bridge cabin, John. So I said, All right, we’ll take to put them in a bag. We were going to a concert down in Manassas. Okay, see sticks, put the food in the bag. We had some beer in the cooler we got there. My wife gets the chair out, but get the music. Feeling good. You know, open it up, open the crab gets my 22nd crab cake and 22 days more to go. And I looked at it. And I looked at it. And my wife said what’s wrong? And I’m like, I don’t know. I’m just gonna try this because I’m being crabcakes every day. I took one bite. I got a crunch. Crunch. I’m chewing it. Like, what is that? That’s celery. All right, hold on. And then I took another bite. And I put it down. And my wife was videoing me because we’re trying to do this on the internet to kind of help businesses. They took chicken salad recipe and put crab in it. So they they made chicken salad. Terrible. But crab me terrible. I don’t know what they did to it. Amy. I have no idea. But that’s not what they do here. families and families. Doesn’t look like this. So when so? When did you you had crab cakes in your kid that
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 12:47
Yes. Yes. Crab cakes. Big big on crabs. You’ve never
Nestor Aparicio 12:50
had a fade these crab? No, we’re bad. So this is my change what’s happened?
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 12:55
I was thinking about this last night because I was asked yesterday if I had ever had one. They said listen, it is the
Nestor Aparicio 13:01
trademark guy. Your doctor, I saw this on your card. How do they let you be a doctor before you’ve had a famous grab game?
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 13:07
Because doctors are not always the smartest people in the room. Oh, all right.
Nestor Aparicio 13:13
It makes me feel better about being here. So for the Baltimore side of this and doing things like this and coming to Lexington market. Did you ever go in the old market here before? It was? No, no, this is the old market? been there since 1782? Okay, right. How many years for your family? 18. What was it 1886. The family family’s been here, right? John fatally, okay, and the Hans now. But so this whole market is where I came when I was a little boy. And about a year, year and a half ago, the end of this and the new markets about 100 yards that way. This is the last piece. This is the end of the end. And we’re about to move this way. And this is going to be gone. Since 1782. This has been 250 years. I mean, the top at historically black college, he’s talking about the history we have in this city. And as a kid growing up just coming down here as a little boy not appreciating it. I was there today. harborplace, open 1981 That’s 40 years ago now, right like the history of the city. And when you drive through here, there’s just something that’s different about the East Coast and different about Baltimore. And I think when you’re recruiting to this university of yours, there’s something to say about their stuff you can get here you can’t get anywhere else.
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 14:27
Well, yeah, sure. Well, you know, no question and that’s a part of what we do, or we use to our strength when we recruit students, as I said earlier internship,
Nestor Aparicio 14:39
so brilliant.
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 14:43
Well, listen, now that now you’re gonna watch out that I know I will. I will bring them on the circuit and make sure that we stopped by here, change lives, but this is this is a part of Charm City. And so when when we’re recruiting students, we’re talking about all of this weird telling students that hear you have access. And exposure is so important to the growth of any individual. You can come here. And you have not only what Charm City has to offer, but you’re also in close proximity to Washington, DC, New York, Philadelphia, right? I mean, this is a great location and a wonderful place to be. And for students who are coming to us from the West Coast or from the Midwest, they’ve never experienced this, when we have international students who are coming to us. Many of them have never experienced snow and cold weather and those things. So we prepare them for the excitement of that, and how it’s going to add to their holistic development as a person and prepare them to go out and do the great things that Eagles do. So selling Baltimore, is the cornerstone of selling carpet, because in my opinion, we are inextricably linked. Listen, every great city should have a great university. Coppin State is Baltimore’s great university. And we are committed to making sure that our students, our faculty, our staff, all those who visit our campus who bump up against us understand that we’re we’re proud of Baltimore, we embrace Baltimore, Baltimore has its challenges, as does every other place I’ve live, right? Washington, DC, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, the Commonwealth of Virginia, Illinois, I’ve lived in all of those states, right. And so I know firsthand that there’s nothing here in this city we cannot fix, it’s going to take an approach that requires business leaders, elected officials, community members, and institutions of higher education. And as an anchor, University of West Baltimore, competence committed to that. And so I’m excited about where we are, where we are headed. You know, we’ll we’ll have the opportunity to talk about the you know, growth of the institution from a brick and mortar standpoint, and from a student enrollment standpoint, because I’m excited about coming up in enrollment is up across the board. Overall headcount. For us this fall is up. In fact, let me say the kids go to college. So right now we’re going to be just over a 2100 students. And so last year, we were one of only three institutions recognized by USM in the system to see freshman enrollment growth. This year, we’re gonna see overall growth again, we’re gonna see growth at the incoming freshman level growth at the transfer student level, growth at the graduate student level, and our housing is 100% occupied. So right now we are doing great things that comp and not to talk about the historic fundraising, the historic research that we’re doing. When I got to cop and on an annual basis we were doing in 2019, about $1.3 million a year in fundraising. My first year, we took that up to 2.1. My second year, we took that to 4.7 million in one year. This year, we finished at just over $6 million in one year. And on the research side, because we are very intentional about our research. In 2019, we were doing about $1.2 million in research. This year, we closed the books at $14.1 million in research. And so we have the wind at our back. We’re doing great things my faculty is second to none. My staff are dedicated beyond any that I’ve ever worked with. I am proud to be the president of COPPA and it is a phenomenal time to be an eagle a phenomenal time to be
Nestor Aparicio 18:37
if you and I hit the lottery, we had a billion dollars like to give you what’s the next thing that’s going to happen there. What’s the next thing that will be invested in there? From a growth standpoint? So
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 18:47
we we are in October, I’m going to cut the ribbon on our new College of Business. Okay. All right, nearly a $50 million college of business state of the art. It’s incredible. I have a new residential facility that I’m breaking ground on in summer of 2024 because my housing 100% 100% I have young people living off campus right now we have a partnership in downtown Baltimore, that we had to house students off campus. And so I’m very excited about that. I’m going I would take that billion dollars and I would invest in three phases, our living, literally, living learning community at the institution, our academic enterprise and our athletic enterprise. I need to build our young men, a baseball stadium. We are the MEAC champs. We had the best baseball stadium in the MEAC and we compete second to none. They don’t have a home baseball so yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 19:40
I talked to Sherm they get an annual accounting play, right. I
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 19:43
mean, we for 20 years have been traveling to Arundel County, right? That’s not how you treat a championship baseball team. And so I’m going to be asking folks to come to the table and help me build a baseball stadium
Nestor Aparicio 20:00
Right, where should I get to you? You know,
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 20:01
that that’s that’s one of the areas and we’re going to continue to invest in our faculty, our academic programs. We have rolled out several new academic programs from data science to a master’s in teacher education leadership, a cybersecurity engineering program, fully online degree programs. I mean, we’re just doing great things that happen and folks are looking at us for the first time and some are peeking back over the fence again, because they can’t believe what’s going on. at Baltimore’s hometown University.
Nestor Aparicio 20:35
Dr. Anthony Jenkins is running things up and compensates. I gotta get him out of here. He’s about to eat the world famous fadeless crabcake it’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery in conjunction with our friends at window nation and Jiffy Lube as well. We’re out on the road. Orioles are playing well. Ravens are starting the season. Fall is here. If we feel some normalcy that is good. Right? It’s got a little it’s easy. I mean, it’s it’s it’s different. It’s not like any other crabcake it’s it’s a mustered forward crabcake that lasts me all the time.
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 21:06
That is delicious. That is great. Yeah, you
Nestor Aparicio 21:09
have you had a little cherry tomatoes yet. Those are my favorites too. All right. I’m gonna get Damian letter raskins gonna be down here we got crab cakes for him as well. Come on down to fate Lee’s visit down here one last shot before they move on 100 feet away and into something new. We’re in Brighton Rebecca. She keeps swearing that every single sign in here, she said it’s going to look and feel just like the old one. That that’s what we’re going for. So we’re going to continue to try to do that. But it’s football season. I’ve been playing in this all summer long. Jamie’s going to be your lead. raskins gonna be here for Rascon global. I have checked this out. This is Rascon global. He has his crab feast, sinister crab mallet with the beer bottle opener on the side. I mean, that’s ingenuity. Packet by hand. Today, most of going to cop and I’ll tell you right. So I’m gonna have a letter Rascon it’s always good to see you want to say from my leadership standpoint of my my institution at wn St. We’ve been partners 10 years. I remember going over sitting with a rough and over cop and and saying hey, man, you know, we need to flagship he wanted to get the games on. I said, Wait, you can hear us on your campus. Let’s do this. And it’s just been great getting to know all your coaches from Sherman. Women’s men’s basketball when Juan was here it just everybody what happens to me but more than that roughly brought the mascot dismissed, right because you missed the mascot. The mascot was here. The mascot was here. So what we’ve
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 22:31
done is that we now have three Eagle statues on campus. So the next time you’re on campus, they’re right in front of the actual Eagle Center the basketball arena. Jackson is there ready to greet all Eagle nation fans. We have one in the heart of campus around our Living Learning Community. And we have one on the backside of the PC. It looks just like Jackson. It students are loving it. Families are loving it. It’s a great added value to the university.
Nestor Aparicio 23:05
So I collect these 1970s rock’n’roll belt books. So today I wore this for you. Thank you eagles, right? Perfect right? I pulled that said man. Some days I’m confused like should I wear Led Zeppelin Should I wear Boston should I graduate to eagles? I have several eagles. So he is the president of all things eagles that over compensate. You gotta compensate sports and learn about everything that’s going on including December 20. Is that sold out already? Or what’s what’s going on? Like that’s it is it
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 23:35
is it the tickets are going going gone? You need to go to our athletic website at Coppin State University. Look for tickets again, October one. I think those tickets will go out to the public but
Nestor Aparicio 23:50
lasts about 30 seconds probably probably not even star in like in the biggest, biggest female star sports athlete in the country right a bit. Immediately. I’m thinking gymnasts something I’m thinking. But golfers you know what tennis players I mean, Coco is pretty big right now
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 24:07
CoCo was really bummed but but I’m trying to get Coco
Nestor Aparicio 24:12
she’s bigger in cocoa right?
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 24:15
I am. I am bringing an angel to campus. I’m trying to get cocoa to a campus and listen, my really be
Nestor Aparicio 24:20
doing something you get her to transfer it. I don’t want to upset Marilyn.
Dr. Anthony Jenkins 24:25
Don’t Don’t don’t do that too. I have people coming at me more than what they are now. But listen, we have our Coppin Golf Classic September 20 where we raise funding to support our student athletes. Greystone golf course. Beautiful course beautiful course. I would love for y’all to come out. Join me you can go to Coppin State University’s website. Go to our athletic page. You can find all information. Space is very very limited. Now we are we are down to maybe one or two more teams. Yeah, but we have a go How to Raise $100,000. Last year we raised $70,000, exceeding our goal of 50,000. This year we have a goal of 100,000. We’re going to hit and break that goal. Our Golf Classic is the best Golf Classic in Maryland. And I’d be there still will be there. And I encourage everyone to come out, have a great time. We have golfing, and we have non golfing events. We have putting contests against my wife, the First Lady of COP, Antoinette Jenkins, we have wine tasting, we have live music, we have cigar rolling, we have all those great things going on, because that is how to do it. We’re having fun and learning and growth and transformation should be fun. And that’s what we’re doing at Compass State University.
Nestor Aparicio 25:41
I want to see Sue swing a golf club, you and Brian Bullock’s, our partner here and the Brian six foot eight. Like like him, right? And Brian swore off golf forever, like hated golf, hated golf, hated golf all his life. He turned 65 He moved to Minnesota. He’s golfing like six days a week now. He said to me two weeks we’re gonna talk to you. If there’s not golf there, I’m not common and I’m like, that sounds so weird to hear you say that after 20 years of hating golf, but but being tall and golf and man, I got my back’s killing me to swear I can’t think about swinging the golf club lucky classic five but I’m not not not for me today. All right, Dr. Anthony Jake is gonna get out of here. Get back to educating the the fine students in West Baltimore. We’re family so it’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery win donation and Jiffy Lube. Let raskins gonna be your I have not gotten into this crap. Yeah. Well, I’ve been crushing these fried oysters over here. I’m gonna have a few more of those. I’m gonna have a crab cake we’re gonna continue on. It is the Maryland crab cake tour. We’re back for more families in Lexington market. Stay with us.
