Rohna Battle-Woodger landed her first “grown-up job” after college as a marketing director for a Detroit-based production company. 

But for the Michigan State University graduate, something was missing. 

The 24-year-old is now back in school pursuing her passion for design at Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design. Battle-Woodger is among 35 students enrolled in the school’s inaugural PLC Light School, a free, seven-week night school offering courses in footwear, apparel, accessories and more. 

“I’m happy to return to fashion because I’ve always pursued it as a hobby, but I’ve never taken it seriously, because I thought, ‘Let me get a corporate job,’” she told  fellow students during the program’s recent launch event. “I’m following my heart and letting God direct me on this path.” 

Also forging a new path is PLC Detroit itself. The road before it has a long history of providing educational opportunities to thousands of Black Detoiters and its new course aims to do the same. 

PLC Detroit is a revamp of the Lewis College of Business, Michigan’s only historically Black college (HBCU), which operated for 75 years and served around 27,000 students before closing in 2013. The school reopened in 2022 with a focus on footwear design inside the College for Creative Studies’ Alfred Taubman Center and now has a location at Bedrock’s Icon building in the city’s Rivertown neighborhood. 

PLC Detroit is focused on becoming a design hub for Detroit creatives interested in getting into the footwear and clothing industry. PLC Detroit president D’Wayne Edwards and his team provide free masterclasses with partner companies. The school receives financial support from the Gilbert Family Foundation as well as companies like Target and Foot Locker. 

E. Scott Morris, the chair of footwear for PLC Detroit, said the masterclasses often lead to students getting internships or apprenticeships with the partnering companies. 

“People need to build a resume and build their level of learning, so that’s always been a part of what he’s (Edwards) wanted for the students because it was something that he couldn’t get in his time,” Morris said. “And I tell you what, it works. It’s super beneficial.” 

PLC Detroit Program Manager Anthony Arias declined to specify how many  students received internship and apprenticeship opportunities after the masterclasses, but said they have “hundreds of former students that are now working in the product design industry.” 

The school’s inaugural class was sponsored by Carhartt, while the Light School is a partnership between StockX and the Detroit Pistons. The college’s Threaded by PLC x Foot Locker LEED (Leading Education and Economic Development) initiative, a five-week program that offered support for designers of color earlier this year. 

Currently, PLC Detroit is not considered an HBCU. According to the Higher Education Act of 1965, an HBCU is defined as a historically Black college or university that was established before 1964, has a mission to educate Black Americans and is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency. 

A search in the US Department of Education’s accreditation database shows that PLC Detroit is not accredited. The school does not offer associate and bachelor’s degrees or offer federal student aid, which is only possible through accreditation. However, the school is developing a plan to offer associate degrees in the next year or two, Morris said. School officials said that PLC Detroit is in the process of obtaining accreditation. 

In the meantime, PLC Detroit will focus on its masterclasses. Its next class, titled “Future Soles 2.0,” will be held in partnership with Nike. The program will begin online May 12, with in-person classes starting June 23. The deadline to apply online is May 1. 

Edwards previously told BridgeDetroit that he hopes Detroiters see PLC Detroit as a resource to provide opportunities for their future.

“I hope that we’ll get people who may have given up on their passion of becoming a designer, and may have taken a safer career route and they tried this and they realized they were actually much better at it than what they imagined,” Edwards said. “This kind of sparks them to rekindle whatever fire they had from a creative perspective and possibly pursue it — either with us from an education perspective, or to pursue it as a possible career path and a career change.” 

School spokesperson Phyllis Caddell declined interview requests on Edwards’ behalf. 

A different world 

In 1928, Violet Lewis founded the Lewis College of Business in Indianapolis with the goal of teaching Black women the secretarial skills she learned in college. 

She was only able to open the school after receiving a $50 bank loan, which required finding three federal employees to co-sign for her, reported Michigan Public. While the college’s first class had just six students, some of whom were family and friends of Lewis, enrollment grew rapidly over the college’s first few years.

In 1938, Lewis was asked by the Detroit Chamber of Commerce to start a school in the city, according to the Detroit Free Press. The following year, the Detroit location opened on Warren Avenue and McGraw on the city’s west side. An ad in The Michigan Chronicle showed the school’s grand opening was held on Sept. 24, 1939. Cortez Peters, the first African American to win and hold the title of the World’s Accuracy Typist upon winning the World’s Amateur Typing Contest in 1925, was a special guest. 

In 1941, Lewis closed the Indianapolis school to focus on the quickly growing Detroit school full-time. To accommodate, the college moved to the city’s Cultural Center in a building on John R and Ferry Street. 

During World War II, the Lewis College of Business played a key role in getting more Black professionals in Michigan’s auto industry. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., along with Michigan Bell (now AT&T), all hired their first Black office employees from the school. Lewis College of Business began expanding its services, with the two-year school offering courses in data processing, computer science and accounting, reported the Free Press. 

Lewis died in 1968 after a battle with breast cancer. Her daughter Majorie Harris took over as the college’s president. In 1976, Lewis College of Business moved back to the west side at 17370 Meyers Rd. and, in 1987, was designated as a HBCU. 

In the 1990s and 2000s, the college faced financial difficulties as enrollment decreased. As a way to compete with other colleges in the area, the school began offering bachelor’s degrees in business administration in 2000. However, that wouldn’t be enough to increase enrollment. In 2007, Lewis College of Business lost its accreditation. Six years later, the school closed its doors for good. 

From designer dreams to launching PLC  

Before getting involved in education, Edwards was a footwear designer. 

With no formal education, he started his career in 1989 at the age of 19 in an entry-level designer position for LA Gear, according to the PLC Detroit website. Edwards went on to work at Nike, designing shoes for the Air Jordan brand. He accumulated more than 50 patents and designed more than 500 footwear styles for rappers like Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, and Snoop Dogg. His designs have also been worn by athletes such as Derek Jeter, Carmelo Anthony and Michael Jordan.

“I had a great career, from 1989 to 2011 and then I retired,” Edwards told Bridge in a December 2024 interview. “My last job was as the design director for Jordan, and being able to work with some of the best athletes ever to play a sport and hip-hop royalty…it’s been a great opportunity to be able to do that. And then I retired to give it all back and start the school.” 

That school was Pensole, a footwear academy Edwards founded in 2010 in Portland, Oregon. More than 700 alums have positions with top footwear brands like Nike, Adidas and New Balance, according to PLC Detroit’s website. 

About 10 years later, Edwards’ former student, Allen Largin introduced him to billionaire Dan Gilbert, said Morris, the school’s footwear chair. Largin is now the creative and innovation director at Rock Ventures. Edwards learned about the Lewis College of Business during his visit to Detroit and soon made it his goal of reopening the school. 

He then reached out to Violet Lewis’ granddaughter Violet Ponder to seek her blessing on reopening the college, which was successful, Morris said. 

In 2021, Edwards became the majority stakeholder in the Lewis College of Business and submitted a Certificate of Assumed Name to the state of Michigan to allow the school to operate as Pensole Lewis College.

Since opening its doors, PLC Detroit has created a design studio in collaboration with Foot Locker, hosted the National Black Footwear Forum and unveiled its student merchandise collection last year with rapper Big Sean.

Caddell, the school spokesperson, said when it comes to spreading awareness about PLC Detroit’s programming, she “implements a media relations plan that encompasses media outreach, social media and content marketing.” 

The next step for the college is developing a program where students can earn  an associate of applied science degree, Morris said. The two-year associate-level degree often has a focus on a particular applied science or technical skill, where students can quickly jump into the workforce. Morris said the college is in discussions with Wayne County Community College District on an arrangement where students can take general education courses with the institution and design classes at PLC Detroit. 

“We will be busy,” he said. “New players will be coming to help us in academics, so we’ll have new staff. Soon, it won’t be practice. It will be game time. We’ll really be going hard helping somebody build a future. And you just want to help them build the best future that you can.” 

Looking toward the future 

Battle-Woodger, the student participating in PLC Light School, has about two weeks left in the program. Students were asked to create a piece of apparel or an accessory, and for Battle-Woodger’s project, she’s working on a tote bag made out of denim and leather. 

“They give you a chance to challenge yourself when it comes to creating whatever you want to create,” Battle-Woodger said about the school. “For my tote bag, I’m thinking about it every day. I’m working toward something every day before I go to class.” 

When the program is over, the Detroiter plans to relaunch her tote bag brand, Top Tote, which has been inactive for years. 

“I want to continue using the knowledge I learned through the curriculum and use that to get back to doing the tote bags that I was creating,” she said. 

Meanwhile, former student Jordan Dixon is working on a collection for his streetwear brand NoxID. It will launch on Foot Locker’s website this fall. The 25-year-old Detroiter is one of the winners of PLC’s Threaded program. Dixon said he heard about the school through a friend who took one of the masterclasses and secured an internship with Carhartt. 

Participating in the Threaded program was a full-circle moment for Dixon, who  used to work at Champs, a subsidiary of Foot Locker. 

“I always loved going in and seeing the new products that were coming out,” he said. “Going from working at Champs to going to PLC and meeting some of the people that actually created those products and getting a chance to learn from them…seeing that there was a Foot Locker class open, it just felt like a no- brainer.” 

Dixon said the program helped him on his design and leadership skills and how to better understand his consumer base for NoxID. Even though the program ended in February, he continues to stay in touch with his instructors and visit the college. 

“I would not be here without PLC,” Dixon said. “I know I have the talent, but they gave me the direction, structure and the resources. They saw something in me, so I was like, ‘You know what? I believe in myself.’”