Fayetteville State Faculty Member to Participate in White House Event: "Communities in Action: Building a Better North Carolina"

Fayetteville, N.C., (September 21, 2022) — Dr. Robert Taber, an Associate Professor of History at Fayetteville State University (FSU), will participate in the “Communities in Action” event on the White House grounds tomorrow to discuss the impact of Biden-Harris policies and recent legislation on North Carolinians.

Taber will join North Carolina elected officials and community leaders at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for a roundtable discussion and briefings from senior White House and Cabinet officials. He plans to highlight the impact of American Rescue Plan funds on Fayetteville State students’ progress toward graduation, the enabling of important campus capital improvements, the benefits of debt relief for Pell Grant recipients, and the needs to connect FSU graduates, including many veterans and adult learners, with the job opportunities being created by the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act.

FSU received more than $41 million through the American Rescue Plan of March 2021, enabling FSU to clear more than $1.6 million in outstanding student balances, allowing almost 1,200 students to start the current semester with a clean slate. The funds were also used to fund free summer courses and upgrade building and technology infrastructure.

“I am honored to represent FSU and the state of North Carolina in this discussion, as we continue to develop strategies that increase student success in and out of the university setting,” said Taber.

A specialist in the politics of the Haitian Revolution, Dr. Taber is an active participant in campus and community life. He serves as a Faculty Senator on the Senate Technology Committee, as part of the campus’s delegation to the UNC Faculty Assembly where he co-chairs the Education Policy Committee, and as Vice President of Policy Outreach for the social welfare nonprofit Carolina Forward. Taber was instrumental in creating the FSU Lafayette Fund for the Study of the Age of Revolutions, Emancipation, and Civil Rights and is the faculty advisor for the FSU Black History Scholars Association. For his advocacy, Dr. Taber has been recognized by the Fayetteville Observer’s “40 under 40” (2019) and by the Center for American Progress as a “Faith Leader to Watch” (2021).

Inside the classroom, Dr. Taber is part of the team implementing adaptive learning in core curriculum courses, Fayetteville State’s strategic intervention to improve student retention and progress toward graduation, especially for rural and first-generation college attenders. In 2019, he was recognized as the “Outstanding Mentor” by Fayetteville State’s McNair Program.