N.C. Central Univeristy has joined a resource-sharing consortium with eight other universities aimed in part at improving the academic performance of African-American male college students.

The project is called Interlink Alliance and joins eight historically black institutions with Ohio University to share ideas and resources and will include faculty and student-exchange programs.

Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte is the other member from North Carolina.

More information is available here.

Historically black institutions have long struggled to improve the academic performance of black, male students, a challenge the leaders of this new initiative acknowledge.

"We felt that the African-American male was an endangered species and that we needed to do something that would allow the matriculation and graduation of more African-American males throughout our institutions as well as others," said Roderick McDavis, Ohio University's president, speaking to Diverse, a higher education publication.

Less than 34 percent of black, male freshmen at North Carolina's public historically black colleges who enrolled in 2000 graduated after six years, according to UNC system data.

At NCCU, 34.7 percent of black, male students graduated in that time frame, according to the data.