An HBCU faced with surging enrollment in booming Nashville gets creative to house students

• Fisk's total enrollment has increased from 630 to 1,050 total students in five years. In the next four, the school hopes to reach 1,600 total enrollment.
• An investment overhaul is needed to replace aging dormitories. The school is turning to creative methods.
• The focus of leadership and alumni alike is sustainable growth.

When Fisk University faced closure during Reconstruction, constricted by crumbling Union Army barracks and a swelling enrollment, the Jubilee Singers raised $50,000 on an international tour.

The funds built Jubilee Hall, a Victorian Gothic building that flaunted a towering steeple and a magnificent, hand-carved staircase.

Nearly a century and a half later, freshman women live in Jubilee Hall — one of four residence halls on campus. And Fisk, a historically Black college in Nashville, is once again finding creative ways to serve an influx of students.

The university plans to construct shipping-container-style dorm rooms in time for the fall 2023 semester, an initiative that officials hope will relieve pressure on decades-old traditional dorms, while creating additional on-campus housing in an expensive renters market.