‘The Quad’ Star Anika Noni Rose Talks Gender Clashes on College Campus (Video)

“It shows how unequal and uncared for [women of color] feel,” the BET star tells TheWrap’s Stuart Brazell about the new series

Actress Anika Noni Rose stopped by TheWrap’s studio to talk to Stuart Brazell about her new BET drama series “The Quad” and the issues it confronts surrounding gender and culture on historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

Rose stars as Dr. Eva Fletcher, an Ivy League administrator who is forced out of her old job and academic world following a scandal. She pulls up stakes and heads down south to become the president of Georgia A&M, a prestigious HBCU with a campus culture that Eva knows nothing about. This causes her to lock horns with Cecil Diamond (Ruben Santiago-Hudson), the director of the school’s wildly popular and very lucrative marching band. The series follows Eva’s struggles to adapt to a new environment and to negotiate with an administrative staff that isn’t used to having a woman in charge.

Rose says that the series reflects real power struggles that have played out at some HBCUs, where female presidents have been ousted by the board of provosts “for a myriad of weak reasons.” She says she hopes that the series will resonate with women in the professional world and with today’s generation of college students, as “The Quad” also follows several sideplots featuring the students of Georgia A&M.

Rose also talked about how timely the show is for women generally and for women of color specifically. “It shows how uncared for and unequal we feel,” she said. “There is a statistic… that ten percent of women of color have speaking lines on TV. That’s speaking lines, not us having a conversation. [the show] is very very timely, it’s very accurate in that unfortunate way.”

“The Quad” debuts  on BET tonight with a two-hour premiere at 10 PM. You can watch the interview in the clip above.

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