The Provost's Office: An Informal History
Chapter Four: Affirmative Action
Issues Concerning
Women
It was not until we began to award
degrees in the humanities and the social sciences that we had more interest
from prospective female students and began to actively recruit female students.
At this time we had only a small number of female students and only a scattering
of female faculty. With the advent of the School of Liberal Arts we began to
see an increase in their numbers. We had no residence halls for women and very
few other accommodations. In the 1960s few people on campus seemed to care very
much. A few more years would go by before we began to see more than a handful
of women enrolled in non-traditional fields. In fact most people seemed to think
that the B.A. degrees might create more problems for us than they would solve.
Of course the factor which helped make the need for women faculty more evident
was the increase in women students. A major factor which helped besides the
offering of degrees more traditionally sought by women, was the existence of
housing on campus for women students. One important development which had encouraged
the faster construction of on-campus housing was a resolution of the Faculty
Senate to build such housing which was passed on March 3, 1964. At that time
there were plans for such housing, but Senate support was helpful. The B.A.
degrees and the associated increases in enrollment of women, as well as renewed
interest in the sciences and engineering, contributed to our rapid growth during
the 60's and early 70's. By this time, women students were sought and recruited,
and we had residence halls for women students. However, in 1969 we had only
140 women graduates out of a total of 1652 who graduated that year, a very large
increase over the two who earned degrees in 1948.
In 1964 we became a Corporate Member
of the American Association of University Women. At this time NCSU viewed the
organization as primarily a link for women students. Dues cost $25.00, and Miss
Anna Clyde Fraker, a Research Associate in the Department of Engineering Research
was our first liaison representative. In 1967 Dean Peterson filled out a questionnaire
about mature female graduate students for the AAUW. The organization still seemed
primarily concerned about students, and an EPA female staff member, Eleanor
Lami in Student Affairs, provided liaison for us for many years. By the time
I became Provost the organization was very concerned about the status of faculty,
and we began to have a series of senior faculty women who were our liaison representatives.
A faculty member usually served for two or more years.
It was in the late 60's that concerns
about an adequate number of female faculty began to be discussed. It was also
in the 60's when I found the first mention of a concern about the curriculum
as it affected women students. At this time females were not enrolled in ROTC.
The issue was: Is it appropriate for women students to graduate with fewer hours
because they did not take ROTC? It was then recognized that ROTC was no longer
a requirement for all male students. The issue was resolved after study, by
requiring all students who were not enrolled in ROTC to take four more credit
hours. This later was resolved by making all hours taken in ROTC courses a part
of the free electives.
On April 18, 1968, NCSU adopted
a very modified nepotism policy which liberalized, and for the first time, permitted
the employment of relatives in the same department. This policy enabled us to
attract couples to our faculty and increased our chances to employ more women.
Prior to this time we had groupings of departments or even entire schools in
which we could not employ relatives in EPA positions. The limiting factor now
was that a related person in a department or unit could not be in an evaluating
or supervisory position to a relative. In 1972, the Faculty Senate considered
a revision of this policy but recommended that we not change the policy. On
April 13, 1973, the BOG approved a new policy for all campuses of the System.
Although there were considerable word changes and the new policy was longer
and written in more "legalese" language, it did not substantially
modify our existing policy.
I am certain that the existence
of Title IX spurred our campus to try more diligently to make certain that we
were not discriminating against women. The fact that we were under external
pressure helped to encourage us to make changes. I know that Dr. Clark and I
did use this as additional rationale to units that appeared slow in their recruitment
efforts for women faculty, to other EPA positions and for SPA positions, in
addition to clerical positions. Another factor that helped was to have a cadre
of well respected women on campus who gave us advice and who did not let us
forget the need for administrative assistance to make the playing field level
at NCSU. The most valuable and constant assistance was provided by Dr. Clark
who was appointed as the NCSU Title IX Compliance Officer on November 26, 1975.
At periodic intervals as illustrated by the Affirmative Action Plan for Equal
Employment Opportunity, we made modifications in our plans as required "Pursuant
to the Requirements of Executive Order 11246, as amended." These resulted
in modifications in our goals for both women and for blacks in all categories.
One of the first assignments that
I received from Chancellor Caldwell after I became Provost was to advise him
on a request he had received concerning the identification of the marital status
of females on office door labels. The suggestion was that we say Mr. or Ms.
Doe or give the males and the females first names. I asked a few persons for
their opinions. Most did not give a hoot. To a very few persons it was important.
Since we had no uniform policy on how names would be put on doors, my recommendation
was that we not establish a door policy but encourage department heads or those
responsible for labels on doors to label the door as that employee wanted. This
was to be our practice, but I don't know whether it was totally implemented.
Women's concerns and issues have
always been a responsibility of the Provost and began during Dr. Kelly's tenure.
While the women on campus through the AAUP Committee W and through the Women's
Concerns Subcommittee of the Affirmative Action Committee, and the current Council
on the Status of Women, have always wanted to report to the Chancellors (who
have all been deeply interested in these matters), it has been the Provost who
has been most involved in the finding of solutions to problems. For example,
when I became Provost I recognized that women were being hired in many departments
at salaries lower than those for men at the same rank and with similar experience.
I soon began to keep a running list of all the new hires and their salaries
at the different ranks by department. I required that the salary proposed for
all new faculty to be hired to be approved by me. If a department wanted to
make an offer at a lower level than that made to a man with similar experience
and rank, and some did at first, I required that the same salary be offered
to the female prospect. This solved the problem of different salaries at the
entry levels which are so difficult to overcome, except for those who become
stars among the faculty.
To illustrate the problem, I will
describe one department where, during the years of Shirley's and Kelly's tenure
a serious problem developed. During Kelly's last years and my first years as
Provost we had to correct it. We had a long time head of a department with good
faculty, and a number of these were female. The salary structure in the department
defied interpretation. Insofar as I decided, or guessed much later, he had something
like this as a guideline to determine who got paid the better salaries. There
did not appear to me to be different competency levels related to gender. If
you were single you did not need as much to live on, he reasoned. If you were
married and both members of the marriage were working you needed even less,
and it appeared to be so especially if you were a woman whose husband worked
anywhere. Men with larger numbers of children needed more; however, there did
not seem to be a similar reward for women who had children, and this was especially
true if the husbands also worked. This was a problem we had to try to get into
focus so that all of the people were rewarded for the quality of their work.
This department got extra salary increase funds for several years and the then
department head was most helpful in getting the differences resolved as quickly
as we could. He did have some problems with the questions raised by one Labor
Department review which questioned several female salary levels. We agreed with
the department head's assessment, but we were required to raise the issue anyway.
He said in a letter to me: "Surely the Department of Labor is not going
to be 'selective' about what objective criteria are to be used in determining
equitableness." Some Labor Department employees who did these investigations
had little experience with universities and university practices and procedures.
Fortunately many learned quickly and were willing to listen to rational reasons.
Dr. Clark was also a wonderful mediator
for NCSU. There came a time when we technically were supposed to have an affirmative
action review every time that we had a grant of one million or more dollars.
That became a frequent experience, and fortunately we did not have to go through
this each time we received such a grant.
On July 15, 1977, I wrote the school
deans the following memorandum.
Subject
Female Salaries Within the next few days, I expect to be making allocation
of the salary increase funds. I wish to remind each of you that the Department
of Labor will be investigating our pay practices and levels as they relate
to specific (perhaps all) females with faculty ranks this fall. You will recall
that the 'Equal Pay' investigation was supposed to begin again early this
past spring. I was able to persuade Mr. X, the representative for the Department
of Labor, to postpone the investigation until this fall, allowing us to make
further adjustments where necessary.
The intent
of this memo is to remind you that we may well be called on to justify any
or all salary differences between men and women. Earlier this year we sent
some of you forms which might be used for comparative purposes. I am asking
you to remind your department heads to be very much aware of the need to eliminate
discrepancies where they cannot be explained, justified and documented. It
is my sincere hope that the salary differences between women and men at all
ranks in the university can be reduced this year.
Of course I did keep a little larger
than usual fund to help eliminate discrepancies that I had noted in the same
information that had been sent to the deans. The campus responded very well.
The first memorandum I found that
provided specifically for extra salary increase funds for minorities and women
was in a "Note to File" that I had prepared at the request of Provost
Kelly on November 15, 1972. This note said that we would have a small quantity
of salary increase funds to be applied to salary increases effective January
1, 1973. This note indicated that I had called the school deans and indicated
to them that "as a top priority, we ask you to consider the salaries of
all minorities and all women paid from 18141 (academic affairs) funds to your
school to determine whether their pay is appropriate on the basis of merit."
The note indicated that as a second order of priority we would consider increases
for full professors or other special needs as resources permitted. The sum of
the salary increase funds was $20,000.
In Chancellor Caldwell's annual
report to the President for 1972-73 he stated: "The intelligent and conscientious
efforts throughout the campus to expand the number of women and minority race
students and staff in the enlargement of educational justice are conspicuous.
Evidence seems to come slowly, but every year shows measurable advance."
On April 12, 1976, I sent the Deans,
Directors and Department Heads a memorandum reporting on an AAUP Committee W
survey and a meeting that I had with about 30 members of this AAUP campus group.
The information that I shared with the Deans and the other individuals was the
perception of a majority of the women faculty on the NCSU campus. I asked them
to review the material carefully, and consider the points raised, to make certain
that we were treating our women faculty equitably and that we were giving them
the same opportunities given to others. The issues were as follows:
1. Salary
- It is true that the differences in the salaries of women and men increased
last year at the various ranks.
2. Workload
- There is concern that women are sometimes given the more mundane and less
likely to be rewarded assignments.
3. Scholarly
Activities - While some individuals feel that the workload for women provided
less opportunity for research, more individuals express concerns that women
were contributing to scholarship, but that existing contributions were not
fully recognized.
4. Graduate
Faculty Membership - Proportions of women are less than for men. This is also
related to the concern that few women teach graduate courses and chair graduate
committees.
5. New
Hires - Few women are being selected for interviews and even fewer are being
hired. We are making little progress in increasing the number of women faculty.
I felt that the issues were important
but that their resolution required not only the constant concern of the Provost
and dean, but also the entire faculty of each department. Hence, the major emphasis
and focus was on the department where the assignments were made.
In every letter written to allocate
salary increases I always asked the deans to make certain that these funds would
also be used to eliminate salary inequities. I had used as support the salary
study of Institutional Research as developed by a committee of AAUP Committee
W, as well as a study by Dr. Clark which provided the deans and department heads
with a computer print-out comparing female salaries in each department by rank
with the males in that department. Hence, the deans always knew which individuals
had been identified as having low salaries. We, of course, expected a number
and a proportion of female faculty similar to that of male faculty to deviate
from the average, in both the high as well as the low salaries. So our concern
was not just with those with low salaries.
I also realized that the salaries
of present women faculty in most departments were lower than those of men by
rank. I established each year during my tenure as Provost some salary increase
funds to try to address these differences. At first the problems were worse
in SHASS which had the most female faculty appointments. The report of Dr. Clark's
provided information so that salaries would be seen by the department head and
the dean and evaluated on the basis of contributions at the department and school
levels for salary increases. It also gave me a tool to aid in my salary reviews
with deans. In the mid-to late eighties we began to require that the deans explain
the rationale if a female faculty member on the AAUP Committee W list did not
get at least an average increase. I listed from an analysis of salaries some
females whose salaries were statistically below those of similarly ranked faculty
men. I held a special meeting with each dean prior to my making the salary increase
allocations each year. In this case the dean provided me with reasons why the
female's salary was lower or a statement that he would make an adjustment. Just
before I retired I could look at salary data, and feel that we had really reached
my goal of having no real statistical differences by field by gender in salaries.
I understand that Hart continued these studies and reviews.
I also followed rank and promotions
carefully. In this case I could find little difference by gender in the time
required for promotion in a specific unit. Dr. Kelly's and my early efforts
in this area seemed to have reached appropriate status sooner. There are some
female faculty whose salaries were low in units, but there were similar proportions
of men. This is also true for rank. There are considerable differences among
schools for both salary and time required for promotion, but I could not detect
differences on the basis of gender within a department.
The most difficult problem was getting
more female faculty hired. This was a concern of Provosts Kelly and Hart too.
In 1971, when I was reallocating positions for Dr. Kelly to the Deans, we began
earmarking a few positions that must be filled by a black or a female. One such
example was in PAMS where they had two vacancies, so one was earmarked for a
female. In 1972, as another example, I met with a search committee in Psychology
and explained to them why we would not consider white males for a vacancy in
their department until we considered qualified blacks and/or females. At that
time they had neither on their faculty. I indicated to them that we had encouraged
employment of females and blacks in the past but had seen little increase in
the number of such faculty. I indicated that: "We are now attempting to
identify vacant positions and are requesting that certain of these be filled
by either blacks or females." The search committee indicated that this
had been a traumatic experience for them and they had wished that we had explained
this in person. I indicated in a "Note to File" on January 24, 1972,
that we parted on friendly terms and that they had volunteered to help in the
development of our compliance plan. They did fill this vacant position with
a female.
I finally decided that most departments
on most occasions could and usually did find a "better qualified"
male to fill vacancies based on the criteria that they used (which seemed to
include number and quality of publications). In many fields doctorates among
females were scarce. The breakthrough began to come when it was learned that
a school or department would likely get a new and extra position if they found
a qualified female prospect. While I did not hold a pool of vacant positions
for females as I did for African-Americans, I always asked before I allocated
positions about the prospects of new female faculty hires and gave new positions
for this purpose. The major source for these newly allocated permanent positions
was the temporary position pool where I would convert a temporary position to
a permanent one. It helped in many cases, but I'll only mention two. In one
case a dean came forward with a proposal for a substantial increase in the salary
of a temporary faculty member in a department which had no female faculty. I
asked, if she is this good why hasn't she been made permanent. The dean thought
this was great, so the faculty in the department also decided that they wanted
her and the additional permanent position. In another case I had been trying
for years to give a position to a department with no women faculty. They never
seemed to be able to find a woman as well qualified as some male applicant.
On the retirement of the department head, the dean of the school and I connived
and discussed the problem with prospective heads in interviews. When the department
came up with three prospects who were the best qualified (and they were), the
dean and I found a way to provide positions for all three. Our best success
in recruiting female faculty has been in CHASS. Each year when I asked deans
to outline their needs in their requests for new positions I reminded them that
their requests should include positions "needed to meet your affirmative
action guidelines for blacks and women which cannot be met with positions to
be vacated by retirements." In my letters of position allocations to deans
or to other units I always reviewed the progress of our efforts in meeting our
affirmative action goals for women and blacks. In 1976 I included in the allocation
letters a statement similar to that:
I hope
that these positions, as well as other positions which are or will become
vacant in your school, can be used to increase the numbers in these two employee
groups. While we are not asking you to employ unqualified persons or saying
that the positions cannot be used to employ white males, we do expect you
to make substantial progress in meeting your affirmative action goals.
We also established a policy which
required a review and approval by Dr. Clark of affirmative action efforts before
any offer could be made to fill a vacant position for EPA employees.
On October 5, 1973, our Affirmative
Action Plan was reported to the NCSU Trustees. This plan was, of course, a part
of the BOG System plan which had been submitted to HEW. It was indicated that
HEW had informed us that a preliminary evaluation of the proposed Affirmative
Action Compliance Program had been completed and that for the most part the
proposed NCSU plan was responsive to the HEW requests for corrective actions
relating to Executive Order 11375. We were at that time preparing additional
information requested by HEW before final evaluation of the plan could be completed.
As we all know, it would not be long before the Courts would rule that the plans
of several states, including North Carolina, were not satisfactory and it was
not until later (see the Race section which follows for
details) that the courts finally ruled that our plans, revised many times, were
satisfactory.
As we set up our affirmative action
structure on campus under Dr. Clark's direction, we set up each school as a
separate unit with additional affirmative action units in Student Affairs, Libraries,
Business Affairs, University Extension and Special Units. Each had an affirmative
action coordinator in the school or unit who reported to the dean or other appropriate
administrator and who was accessible to Dr. Clark. Each worked within their
own units to develop goals of employees in the following groups of personnel:
EPA Non-Faculty, EPA Faculty and SPA employees. Goals were set for race and
gender. This plan then got all of the units and even departments or groups of
departments to set their goals and make them a part of the program. We hoped
that this would make them feel responsible for reaching the set goals, and in
general it did. In a few cases they set goals above those that we would have
considered minimal. In a few other cases we did have to ask a unit to reconsider
their goals and to try to come up with a higher goal. Goals were set on the
basis of new doctorates awarded in the field (or the appropriate terminal degree
for the field) and based on estimates of vacancies to occur in the unit and
on anticipated increases in faculty or staff. For SPA employees the goals were
set using other manpower data and were based on availability figures of personnel
in various fields. Soon after Dr. Clark came to NCSU, I designated some funds
which could be used to bring female role models or others to address issues
of concern to women on our campus. This has, I believe, been quite successful.
We also normally have paid for or helped to support the speaker at the Susan
B. Anthony dinner. I asked those responsible for the development of the programs
which we sponsored to try to have a program which would give us some goals to
accomplish rather than just to have an expensive name who would give a nice
talk. I hoped that these programs would leave us better off than we had been
before we had them. We also wanted to sponsor those who would address issues
that were of most concern to our faculty and staff. In the spring of 1988, I
thought that we had an especially effective series of talks and seminars in
addition to the Susan B. Anthony speaker, Katherine Stinson, our first female
graduate in Engineering. Talks given that spring included some local and some
visiting speakers. Most of the six special seminars dealt with communication
and networking.
An additional item encouraged by
Provosts Kelly, Hart and me was to increase the number of women's studies courses
available. The need and wish is exemplified by a request from Joan Crockett
and a group of students who signed a petition which was sent to the Head of
the History Department in 1977. The petition has no date. The letter reads:
"The attached petition is for your consideration in determining the interest
in a women's history course at North Carolina State University. As you will
see from the petition, there are many women on our campus who are very interested
in learning more about women's history and we feel special attention to this
subject is necessary because of the negligent way it has been treated by authors
of our history books." These students wanted a course at the 400 or the
500 level. We called Dean Tilman to let him know that if it were a matter of
resources, we would help. We also strongly supported the development of the
Women's Studies minor, which did later develop. None of us encouraged the development
of a major in this area. One of the early courses taught was in University Studies
entitled "The Role of Women." It was first taught by Barbara Baines
(English), Renee Steffensmeier (Sociology) and Robert Fern (Economics). It was
novel enough that the Raleigh Times published a story about the course
on July 26, 1973.
In the early 1980s we did begin
to get some complaints from women that we were overloading women with assignments
on University committees. While the complaints were not overwhelming I thought
that it was very pleasant to receive that complaint instead of one that said
that women were underrepresented on University committees.
On January 4, 1984, Chancellor Poulton
established the Council on Women's Affairs. He stated:
I am
this date establishing an Advisory Council on Women's Affairs. The function
of this Council will be to advise the NCSU Chancellor and Provost on matters
pertaining to the needs of women at NCSU and to enhance a positive, harmonious
University environment supporting the fullest development of all human potential.
I am anticipating the Council's meetings with me to involve time commitments
of two hours occurring once or twice a semester.
In 1987 the Council met with the
Chancellor and Provost and the following were items on their agenda: (1) Academic
and Administrative opportunities for NCSU Women; (2) Sexual Harassment Guidelines;
(3) Faculty Salary Study, and (4) Establishment of Administrative Position for
Women's Concerns.
In a 1985 paper, "Affirmative
Action for Women Faculty, Case Studies of Three Successful Institutions, in
the Journal of Higher Education, (May/June 1985, 56, pp 282-299), Patricia
Hyer selected NCSU, based on national data, as a place where efforts to hire
women were working. We were selected as one of three doctoral granting universities
for inclusion in the study. I quote a brief account of what she said.
A constellation
of factors was responsible for the institution's progress in hiring and promoting
women. The first factor most often cited by campus interviewees were: commitment
and leadership by the Provost, federal pressure on the issue of racial duality,
and women speaking out on their own behalf. Structural and environmental changes
played an important supporting role in facilitating affirmative action implementation.
The perception that the Provost was committed to affirmative action is remarkably
consistent across campus, one reason being the consistency of his behavior
and rhetoric. Another is widespread recognition that decision makers will
be held accountable for decisions that do not help the institution achieve
its affirmative action goals. The Provost's effectiveness as a change agent
was greatly enhanced by his choice of a low-key black faculty member as assistant
provost with responsibility for affirmative action. Together they provided
leadership and attention to affirmative action implementation on campus.
Each year Dr. Clark and I together
took our data to the school deans' offices, rather than have them come to my
office, to talk about the number of hires against their goals.
Sexual harassment has occurred on
our campus as on others. We had treated the matter as very important and established
a policy against such activity and had developed a process for the study and
investigation of charges. These were all done in concert with the advice and
help of appropriate faculty, staff and students and in consultation with the
University Attorney. In 1982 NCSU issued its first policy on Sexual Harassment.
A copy was distributed to all students, staff and EPA employees. A committee
of faculty also developed an Informal Grievance procedure which everyone hoped
could resolve most complaints and problems. Formal charges were to be handled
through existing grievance procedures for EPA employees, SPA employees and students.
In 1982-83 the Faculty Senate developed a formal Student Grievance Procedure
which was adopted after a conference committee was formed in 1983. In 1983-84
we had a series of seminars on sexual harassment. In 1986 the Faculty Senate
made recommendations to revise the Grievance procedures.
We have handled a number of major
and minor problems. Fortunately most cases were handled by the informal procedures.
All cases were serious and quite real to the affected persons. In handling cases
where individuals were found guilty of sexual harassment we have offered, in
a few cases, the opportunity for the employee to resign at the end of the semester
or to be fired using the standard procedures. In a few others it seemed more
appropriate simply not to reappoint the individual at the expiration of a term
when the person was in the last year of their appointment. These were the most
serious cases. I do not recall any who did not accept the offer. In others we
removed the faculty member from the classroom or from the administrative responsibility
in the area in which the harassment was occurring. In others we reduced the
salary increase or eliminated a salary increase. In all cases where there was
harassment, the faculty member or the person in charge was held accountable.
We also had claims that upon investigation were not found to be sexual harassment.
We did adhere to the NCSU policy on sexual harassment, and in 1987 we revised
our policy and procedures.
In the late eighties, I supported
a group who studied sexual harassment at NCSU. Members were Rebecca Leonard,
Laura Carroll, Gail Hankins, Carolyn H. Maidon, Paul F. Potorti and Janet Rogers.
On September 19, 1989, they submitted a report to me. On September 26, I wrote
the Dean's Council sending them a copy of the report and placed it on the agenda
for the October 11, 1989, meeting. I indicated to the deans that, "Specific
cases that have been called to my attention have made me aware that this is
indeed a most serious matter. This study causes me to have even greater concern.
We will not review the details of the report at our meeting, but I will be looking
for suggestions of how we can enhance the awareness of the seriousness of this
issue among our administrators and faculty." We later held a series of
meeting to which all faculty and administrators were invited to attend to increase
campus awareness. The report was also made available to each department with
the hope that all would read it. It was agreed that we would resurvey the campus
for sexual harassment activities every five years. I do believe that our efforts
helped to increase understanding of the existence of the problem and helped
to reduce the incidence of harassment, but I am certain that the problem was
not eliminated.
One of the two recognitions that
surprised me the most and that I am most proud of was the "Equity for Women
Award" given to me on September 11, 1990, by the NCSU Council on the Status
of Women. It is a clock plaque and states: "In recognition of his leadership
in the advancement of Women at NCSU."
Issues Concerning
Race
In 1955 Walter Peterson, Chairman
of the Faculty Senate wrote to William Friday, Secretary of the UNC System,
and told him of a resolution under consideration by the Faculty Senate. The
resolution read:
Whereas
we acknowledge the recent actions of the Federal Courts in eliminating racial
discrimination in the admission of properly qualified students to undergraduate
as well as graduate schools of the Consolidated University of North Carolina;
And whereas we are convinced
that qualified students of any race can and will be assimilated without damage
to the educational standards or the loss of good will;
And whereas we believe that the University can and will assume leadership
in the state in showing that the problems of desegregation can be met intelligently
and with good feeling:
Therefore be it resolved that the Faculty Senate of the State College at Raleigh
goes on record as commending the University Administration for its acceptance
in good faith of the modification of admission policy as effected by the recent
Federal Court decision. Also, the Faculty Senate goes on record as pledging
its full support and cooperation in implementing that policy.
Dean Shirley wrote the Director
of the College Union on June 23, 1956, and said:
With
the acceptance of undergraduate Negro students, the question has been raised
about policy in handling these students in dining halls. Acting President
Friday, on the telephone this morning, informs me that the university policy
is to treat all regularly enrolled students in the same way, regardless of
race. This means that in the dining halls and activities, Negro students will
be treated exactly like white students, without special concessions or restrictions.
Since this is university policy, it should be placed in effect immediately,
if it has not already been followed.
In 1962 after Shirley had been elected
to the Chairmanship of the North Carolina College Conference, he recommended
that the N. C. College Conference merge with the Negro College Conference in
North Carolina. In so far as I can tell this was the first proposal for this
merger and it was soon adopted. The two merged and now meet as the North Carolina
Association of Colleges and Universities. This was an important step for higher
education in North Carolina and probably would have happened in time, but I'm
proud that a predecessor of mine made the proposal.
I could not detect that Dean Shirley
played a major role in affirmative action or race related activities during
his tenure. There are suggestions in the files that he and other members of
the Administrative Council were consulted but that Chancellor Bostian, Chancellor
Caldwell and Dean James Stewart, the Dean of Student Affairs, were much more
actively concerned and played the leadership roles while Shirley was Dean of
the Faculty.
Early in Dr. Kelly's tenure I began
to note that he was encouraging a variety of activities. These included hiring
minority faculty and staff. In fact he was the first major office holder in
Holladay Hall to hire a black woman as his secretary. We had other black SPA
personnel on the Provost's clerical staff. He encouraged a closer working relationship
with the predominately black colleges in Raleigh and was especially helpful
to St. Augustine's College. He was very much concerned about the well being
of our black students and encouraged an increase in the number of black students.
At this time the Admission's Office and recruitment was under Student Affairs.
He supported Student Affairs in its request for more resources and for other
types of assistance in this area.
On February 20, 1968, Dr. Kelly
wrote the National Science Foundation a letter which responded to an inquiry.
He said:
It was
good to hear from you through your letter of February 15, and I welcome the
opportunity of commenting on your 'Student Science Training Program'. I would
like to relate the circumstances under which the points of the program came
strongly to our attention.
Two years
ago we spent a whole day looking at the question of why more Negroes do not
go into science and engineering. We invited a group of Negro high school teachers,
a group of teachers on our campus, a group of Negro students on our campus
and presidents of Negro colleges.
The group
of Negro students on our campus were the most help. When we asked them how
they decided to go into science and engineering and why they came to this
campus, we learned that the majority of them had attended a summer science
program of the National Science Foundation either at the end of their junior
year or at the end of their senior year. They told us that without this experience
they would not have dared to enroll here. In addition, they told us that the
sociological experience was just as important as what they learned in science.
For all of them this was the first experience they had away from their socio-economic
environment, and it gave them the courage which they would not have received
otherwise. They reported that they had to work very hard, much harder than
the white students, but they were encouraged that with extra effort it was
possible for them to compete.
On March 14, 1968, a report said
that with the exception of one Extension Assistant Professor in Sociology who
was employed by the Agricultural Extension Service, and six part-time instructors
at the Fort Bragg Division, all of our African-American EPA personnel were employed
as Extension Specialists in the Agricultural Extension Service. This was a sad
commentary on our failure to attract black faculty in academic affairs. This
lack would not improve rapidly.
In its resolution of April 9 1968,
the Faculty Senate made a statement on Racial and Religious Discrimination.
It expressed the gravest concern about the unsolved economic and social problems
which are an important cause of much of the civil disorder afflicting our country.
The resolution of April 9, 1968, called for action by national and state governments,
but recognized that:
Governmental
action alone will not suffice to solve the economic and social problems which
are among the prime causes of such violence.
Substantial
progress against the racial and religious discrimination which is an important
factor in many of the economic and social problems of minority groups depends
less upon governmental action than upon individual personal commitment, expressed
both in attitude and action. The Faculty Senate endorses the following statement
because we find discrimination based on race or religion abhorrent and incompatible
with the idea of a university.
We invite
all members of the administration, faculty, staff, and student body, of this
University to subscribe to the following statement of position; more fundamentally,
we call upon every member of this University community to accept personal
responsibility for making his own contribution in his own way to the kind
of free and open society we must have in America if our historic ideals are
to remain viable. This statement will have served its purpose if it provides
a framework within which each individual may guide his own action
Organizations.
While most professional organizations are not segregated, certain fraternal
organizations, civic, service, and social clubs to which faculty, students,
and staff belong are still segregated on the basis of race or religion. We
urge each individual to search his own conscience to determine how he can
most effectively work to eliminate discrimination within his own clubs and
organizations. We believe that under no circumstances should any University
function be held in any facility that denies membership or service on the
basis of race, nationality or religion.
Housing.
We note with approval that University housing is unsegregated. Segregation
persists, however, in off-campus housing. We support and promote open-occupancy
practice in Raleigh. Open housing is vital to the well-being of a university
that serves and is served by persons of all races, religions and nationalities.
Employment.
This University still employs few members of minority groups, particularly
Negroes, in non-traditional positions. Every member of the University community
has a responsibility to do his part to insure that the faculty and staff are
employed on the basis of individual qualification, without regard to race,
nationality, or religion.
Recruitment
of Students. We ask all who are responsible for recruiting and admitting
students to give full and equal consideration to qualified applicants from
minority groups. We, ask further, that special care be taken to publicize
the fact that this University welcomes qualified students from minority groups.
University
Extension. We commend the Agricultural Extension Service, particularly
the 4-H Club activity, which has long offered professional employment to Negroes,
and is abolishing racial distinctions in its internal organization. This University
has done and is doing much to improve the education and the economic well-being
of minority groups in the State. Extension activities are of such significance
in the improvement of lives of disadvantaged persons that we emphasize our
belief that University Extension, including Industrial Extension and the Division
of Continuing Education, as well as the Agricultural Extension Service, must
continue to play a major role.
It was about this time that the
NCSU Women's Club was scheduled to have a meeting and dinner at the Carolina
Country Club. When those arranging for the meeting learned of the Club's Segregation
Policy they rescheduled their meeting elsewhere. With respect to housing we
did start to refuse to list off-campus housing that would not make facilities
available to persons of all races, religions or nationalities. This was an important
matter because at that time students who did not get on-campus housing usually
went first to the Housing Office to find other places to live.
At this time we did not have many
student applicants who were Negro, qualified or unqualified. It was soon to
become evident that advertising alone would not get many applicants. We began
to employ and use some undergraduate black students to help the Admissions Office
in its recruiting efforts. We had to try very hard to get minority students
to apply for admission to NCSU. We first added one full-time black Assistant
Director of Admissions and later we added a second. They helped our recruitment
efforts very much. We had almost no applicants from Wake County at this time,
and it was not until about the time that I became Provost we began to understand
the problem.
In 1969 Provost Kelly received an
inquiry about Black Studies at NCSU. His response included. "At present
we have few black courses; however, through a cooperative arrangement with Shaw
University and Saint Augustine's College, students from NCSU may take any of
their extensive offerings in Black Studies." This was through the Cooperating
Raleigh Colleges programs. He also indicated that we had no plan to offer a
degree in the area, but that we did hope to offer more courses in sociology,
anthropology, literature, history, and politics.
In the early years of the 1970s
we could not ask prospective students what their race was. It seemed that those
who created the national regulations felt that if we knew a prospective student
was black, we would be more likely to discriminate and not to admit them to
NCSU. So at that time we could not say precisely how many black students we
had in various categories. However, since we had very few black students, our
estimates were probably close. In the early 1980s our records were accurate
and we did ask prospective students, faculty and employees for their racial
identity because all had learned that progress was better when there was identity.
The first African-American faculty
member was Vivian Henderson, a Visiting Professor in Economics, who came in
1962. Dr. Henderson was to become one of Dr. Martin Luther King's lieutenants
during the Civil Rights Movement. Our first faculty member with faculty rank
and in the tenure track was Dr. Dorothy Williams, and she came to NCSU in the
Department of Sociology and Anthropology in 1965. She resigned a short time
later and went to Shaw University. Harold McNeill became an Assistant Professor
of Adult Education in 1968. P. P. Thompson was appointed in the Sociology Department
in 1969. These last two faculty were long time members of the Agricultural Extension
Service and were paid from that funding source. In 1970, the only black faculty
member employed at NCSU against the academic affairs budget and in the tenure
track was Dr. Odell Uzzell, Associate Professor of Sociology. He came to us
from Fayetteville State College. I had gotten to know Dr. Uzzell through my
work with the Fort Bragg Branch of NCSU and had a lot to do with assisting the
department to hire him. When I first mentioned the possibility to the department
head, he said that they would be delighted to have a chance to hire Dr. Uzzell,
but at that time they did not have a vacant position. Dr. Kelly gave them a
new position and at the salary level needed. In the spring semester of 1973
Dr. Uzzell was the leader and coordinator for a symposium "The Black Experience:
Blacks in Business and Politics." Among the outstanding cast of speakers
was Vivian Henderson who was now the President of Clark College in Atlanta.
Augustus Witherspoon obtained his
Ph.D. in 1970 and, I believe, was the first of several African-Americans who
became faculty members at NCSU after obtaining their doctorates here. He had
been an instructor for a couple of years in the same department. Witherspoon
held several important positions in the administration at NCSU and played an
important role in helping us to improve the climate for African-Americans at
NCSU. Some of the others who obtained the doctorate at NCSU and who were faculty
at NCSU in 1991 were: Clyde Chesney, Orlando Hankins, Carol Love, Pam Banks-Lee,
Jackie Hughes-Oliver and Harold Freeman. Dr. Freeman, a native of Raleigh and
a graduate of the old Ligon High School in Raleigh, is a professor in the College
of Textiles. He is also our first African-American to become a Named Professor;
the Ciba-Geigy Professor of Dyestuff Chemistry. Others who obtained their doctorates
here and served here for a short time have moved on to other universities or
to industry.
In 1970 the Chancellor told the
Faculty Senate that we would be unable to hire more black faculty members unless
we actively sought them. In 1970, the Chancellor's Good Neighbor Council proposed
that one way we could get more black faculty on campus, would be to have some
faculty exchanges with predominately black institutions. It seemed that we had
a number of faculty who would like to participate. This turned out to be very
difficult, for it involved matching classes to be taught on two campuses with
individuals from two campuses that wished to be involved. Even under the Consent
Decree, when the UNC system had funds to pay for the exchanges and for travel
costs among the members of the UNC BOG system, we had few exchanges take place
for the same reasons. We were more likely to have exchanges when one needed
an extra section or an entire class and the receiving University did not have
a qualified faculty member. This happened occasionally under BOG, but not very
often. We were able to have a few of our faculty teach a needed course at Shaw
or Saint Augustine's and a few from those institutions who taught at NCSU under
the Cooperative Raleigh Colleges Program. This was easier to arrange because
the locations were convenient and the exchange almost always was on an overload
basis and the faculty member received pay from the borrowing institution. No
matching exchanges were required. The numbers were small and disappointing to
those of us who were struggling to get a larger black faculty presence on campus.
This procedure was suggested by many others, including students. Most could
not understand why it wouldn't work, but it is difficult and costly even under
the BOG system for the faculty member and their families to transplant themselves
to another place for a semester or for a year. The reward to the individual
was not adequate and most would not consider the value of the exchange to the
individual as equal to that of Off-campus Scholarly Assignment.
One among many of our problems in
hiring black faculty was that there was a scarcity of holders of doctorates
among blacks in non-traditional fields and especially in the sciences, which
predominated at NCSU. There were few African-American doctorates in Forestry,
Engineering, Design, Veterinary Medicine, PAMS, Textiles, Business Management
and Accounting, and in most of the fields in the School of Agriculture and Life
Sciences. There were surpluses in no fields that I knew of. It was evident that
we and all of the other doctorate granting institutions had to recruit vigorously
at the graduate student level to increase the supply. Not much happened at first
because recruitment of graduate students was always done at the departmental
level. Graduate deans were reluctant, and most did not want to intrude in the
hiring practice. After a long time we learned, as did a number of universities,
that if we were to increase the numbers of African-Americans with doctorates
in these fields we would have to develop a recruitment strategy at the Graduate
School level for the entire university, and that this strategy would assist
and encourage departments in their recruitment efforts. We needed a black presence
in the Graduate School. Dean Stannett was very willing, and we came up with
a one-half time position out of our own resources. Dr. Augustus Witherspoon
was hired by the Graduate School for this purpose in 1979. I'm pleased that
we finally were able to get a position which had been badly needed for some
time. Recruitment of undergraduate students by graduate programs in many fields
is not easy, and in these fields we even have shortages of US citizens with
doctorates. The best students are recruited very heavily by industry, and their
pay with a B.S. sometimes almost equals that of the beginning doctorate. For
the best African-American students the competition by industry was even greater
and the supply was short, for traditionally blacks had not majored as undergraduates
in these fields.
In 1985, when Chancellor Poulton
appointed an Advisory group from the Black Community, Vernon Malone responded:
"N.C. State University is an outstanding university and there is no logical
reason why more academically capable minority students do not take advantage
of its offerings." I recall a similar meeting in 1974 when Mr. Malone told
us that no child of his would ever attend NCSU. He told us how racist and red-necked
we were and how badly we were viewed by black citizens in Raleigh. So over the
years we did improve.
In 1970 there was some flack about
Dr. Kelly's push to get courses taught in Afro-American and Asian history. The
History Department faculty asked the head to write the following letter:
At its
regular meeting on May 20, 1970, the Department of History approved unanimously
the following statement of understanding of departmental responsibility.
In a
university, the determination of academic matters lies properly with the community
of scholars who comprise the faculty. As part of this larger body, a departmental
faculty constitutes the entity which should determine the academic program
of the department. The right and responsibility of establishing the program
or of formally initiating modifications are essential to the integrity of
the department; outside infringements upon these prerogatives constitutes
an erosion of its integrity.
Concomitant
with the right to determine the academic program, basic prerogatives inhere
in the departmental faculty as a whole, among which is that of deciding upon
the fields of historical concentration which will be included in the department's
academic program. Once the fields of specialization have been determined,
the securing of appropriate personnel should be accomplished by a process
which includes consultation by the department members with the department
chairman by means of a regular procedure established for this purpose.
I was
instructed to forward this statement to the Dean of the School of Liberal
Arts with the request that he transmit it to the Provost of the University.
Dr. Kelly wrote the dean and asked,
"What prompted this? Is there some hidden meaning? What about coordination
with the rest of the University? Don't they have an obligation to discuss needs
and approaches with colleagues in other disciplines?" A part of Dean Cahill's
response follows:
I should
have told you before, I suppose, but what brought all this about was our push
into the area of Asian History and our putting in an Afro-American history
course. They blame it all on Greenlaw, naturally.
As do
all Historians, these people think that there isn't any history except what
they teach. And it is quite natural--people must believe in what they are
doing or they don't do it very well, but it tends to obscure what isn't being
done.
There
are also some aging "enfants terribles" who seem to think that everything
should be conducted under Rousseau's oak tree. For my money, all you get out
of that is chiggers.
Anyway,
I have acknowledged receipt of the communication and said I would forward
it to you. So you keep it and we'll both forget it.
In 1971 the first African-American
fraternity was organized on the NCSU campus. It was Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc. Today
in 1993, we have three others. They are Omega Psi Phi Inc., Kappa Alpha Psi
Inc., and Phi Beta Sigma Inc. In 1972 the first African-American Sorority was
chartered. It was Delta Sigma Theta Inc. Today we have three others and they
are: Alpha Kappa Alpha Inc., Sigma Gamma Rho Inc. and Zeta Phi Beta Inc.
In 1972 Provost Kelly informed those
units who turned in recommendations for salary increases that, "As a top
priority, we ask you to consider the salaries of all minorities and all women
paid from 18141 funds in your school to determine whether their pay is appropriate
on the basis of merit."
In the 1972-73 Annual Report Chancellor
Caldwell reported that William Maxwell had been appointed Assistant Dean of
Education. This was our first African-American appointee as an Assistant or
Associate Dean of an academic school.
It was at about this time that the
School of Liberal Arts proposed to either drop geography or its black politics
course. Both were taught by temporary part-time faculty and geography had a
larger enrollment. In prior years the funds had come from the Dean's reserves
and now were committed to hiring a permanent faculty member in another department.
We decided to give them the extra funds needed to keep both courses going. The
technique of saying we have no funds and will need to discontinue a project
considered vital by the Provost was used frequently. In 1973 Dean Tilman wrote
the Provost and asked for three new positions to hire three black faculty. Dr.
Kelly asked me to find out how many vacant and uncommitted positions the Dean
had. I reported to him that he had several. Provost Kelly wrote, "Does
your request given in your memorandum of April 19 imply that you will hire blacks
only if we give you new positions? If you were sincerely interested in hiring
the 'three good blacks' you mentioned, could you not find some positions within
your own school without help from this office?" I don't recall how we worked
out a compromise, but we did not lose the three because of a lack of positions.
In addition to trying to increase the number of African-American faculty, we
were also very much interested in trying to increase the number of graduate
students. Dr. Kelly responded favorably to an inquiry about our interest in
participating in a plan to increase black graduate students. Dean Peterson also
agreed. He said that our only reservations centered on the need for additional
resources. "Our out-of-State tuition was increased substantially this year.
We do want to locate and encourage more black graduate students, especially
in the fields we offer." Although we could and did award black students
teaching and research assistantships, we had almost no scholarships at the graduate
levels which was a major component of the proposed program. It was not until
the Office of Civil Rights approved our plans in the mid seventies that the
state of North Carolina began to provide additional incentive funds which served
as scholarship funds for the recruitment of black graduate students.
Our Affirmative Action Plan of 1973
was of course, a part of the BOG System Plan which had been submitted to HEW.
HEW had informed us that a preliminary evaluation of the proposed Affirmative
Action Compliance Program had been completed and that for the most part the
proposed NCSU plan was responsive to the HEW requests for corrective actions
relating to Executive Order 11375. We were at that time preparing additional
information requested by HEW before final evaluation of the plan could be completed.
As all know, it would not be long before the Courts would rule that the plans
of several states including North Carolina were not satisfactory. The letter
came on May 21, 1973, which essentially said that the dual system has not yet
been fully disestablished in North Carolina. It also said that "it will
be necessary for this Office to receive an acceptable plan, in advance of the
June 16 deadline set by the court. We therefore, must request the submission
of a plan by June 11." The Board of Governors submitted its revised plan
on June 8, 1973. It was not until much later that the courts finally ruled that
our plans were satisfactory after being revised many times over several years
and occasionally believing that they were approved and then not approved. In
the intervening years we spent many hours revising plans and goals, but we continued
to do those things that we had committed ourselves to do in the recruitment
of staff, faculty and students. Although many people were involved in the preparation
of NCSU's portion of the BOG plans over the years, it was a major responsibility
of the Equal Employment Opportunity Officer and later, when the title was changed,
the Affirmative Action Officer to prepare and coordinate NCSU's efforts. At
this time we reported that we had 22 black faculty in all ranks. For a brief
time in 1973-74, Mr. William Simpson served as Affirmative Action Officer between
Dr. Clauston Jenkins who had been appointed as Equal Opportunity Officer in
1972 and Dr. Larry Clark who joined us in 1974.
On June 8, 1973, Provost Kelly wrote:
Our Affirmative
Action plan calls for specific steps that will involve departmental administrations
and then make them aware of their responsibilities. We shall ask our EEO Officer
to see that the report, Racism in Employment and its 'targets of opportunity'
is distributed and reviewed in terms of goals. We will make certain that Mr.
William Calloway (Director of the SPA Personnel Office) is also involved in
this process. The approach of recruiting graduate students is obvious and
is mentioned specifically in our plan. Success is difficult and we need faculty
commitment on a broad scale. We shall ask our EEO Officer to call attention
of other schools to a specialized recruiting brochure, and we shall also ask
him to find ways of involving the Society of Afro-American Culture in such
efforts.
On September 17, 1973, Mr. Lewis
Bryson of the Atlanta Office of Civil Rights requested additional information.
Chancellor Caldwell responded, in a letter of September 18, 1973, and said that
"your letter was received on September 17 in this office. It requests certain
information on our personnel and goal commitments." He said that we would
try to provide the information within the time requested which was 15 days from
the receipt of the letter. On November 10, 1973, Peter E. Holmes, Director of
the Office of Civil Rights in HEW, wrote to Governor Holshouser in a 16 page
letter that our "current submission falls short of complying with Title
VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." Mr. Simpson, the Chancellor, the Office
of Institutional Research, Dr. Gehle and several others of us in the Provost
Office, were inundated with attending meetings and the gathering of data for
another resubmission. On January 29, 1974, we had a visit by several officials
from HEW who were visiting, meeting officials and students and taking a tour
of facilities over a several day period at the five predominately black campuses
and at NCSU, UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Greensboro. I represented the Provost in
those meetings at NCSU, and I was one of the guides for the campus tour. I thought
that the visit was not a complete success but not a disaster either. We resubmitted
another of our revised plans again on February 18, 1974.
After the Chancellor's staff meeting
on June 3, 1974, I wrote to Dr. Kelly and said that Chancellor Caldwell reported
several recommendations were mentioned at the BOG meeting on March 31, 1974.
The note said:
Several
amendments to the State plan previously submitted to HEW are required. Items
mentioned included:
1. The
supply of Black professionals has to be increased.
2. Efforts
will be made to increase the number of Blacks in graduate degree programs.
3. The
General Administration will apparently establish a roster of Blacks and
females that might be available for positions in the University system.
We will probably need to provide names and resumes of such people to the
pool in cases where we do not hire an individual.
On September 17, 1974, I told the
Faculty Senate that a copy of the Revised State Plan for the Further Elimination
of Racial Duality in the Public Post-Secondary Educational System would go to
the Senate, the Library and the office of each dean. On July 19, 1974, Mr. Holmes
of the HEW Office of Civil Rights wrote Governor Holshouser that The Revised
North Carolina Plan was accepted.
In 1974 the first African-American
woman to receive an Ph. D. from NCSU was Nanette Smith Henderson. Her degree
was in Plant Pathology. In the fall of 1974 our enrollment of African-Americans
had risen from 2% to 3% with that year's freshman enrollment being 5%.
Chancellor Caldwell influenced my
beliefs and behavior concerning the need for changes and opportunities for African-Americans
at universities very much. Larry Clark helped me to see that the issue was more
than just integration which had come to mean to so many the merger of African-American
culture into our Western European culture. He helped me to see that the need
was more a matter of having many cultures, rather than the dilution of one and
its inevitable loss. Many people shaped my behavior as Provost, but in matters
of race and gender, Caldwell and Clark were most influential. As the Assistant
Provost handling the details of curriculum and academic personnel, it was good
to have Chancellor Caldwell, Provost Kelly and me all singing the same tune.
When I became Provost, a part of
my philosophy concerning race issues was that we should do what is right for
moral reasons. There was no way that any rational person could fail to see that
blacks had been denied equal opportunity and although the law supposedly gave
them equal opportunity, this did not exist. It was our responsibility to see
that this opportunity would no longer be denied. I believed in equal opportunity,
but I understood that if we continued to consider only those same old values
and criteria in selecting the "best" and did not provide opportunity
to those capable of doing the job, little change would occur. For this reason
I felt that we had to invest in those qualified and capable. In this under-represented
area the fact that you were qualified, very good and black meant that you should
be given a chance to succeed. This really meant that if the system could find
two of equal quality it probably also meant that the black person had been under
valued. I felt that this country could not survive if so large a portion of
its population was contributing below their potential. For patriotic reasons
and country survival value, the least we could do was to ascertain that at NCSU
we would give blacks a chance. I learned quickly that playing on moral values
and leaving matters in the hands of others to do the right thing frequently
would not work. Many of the things which were accomplished while I was Provost
was with the help of others. We were trying to do positive things, to be active
and even pushy at times.
Each year when I asked deans to
outline their needs in their requests for new positions, I reminded them that
their requests should include positions "needed to meet your affirmative
action guidelines for blacks and women which cannot be met with positions to
be vacated by retirements." In my letters of position allocations to deans
or to other units, I always reviewed the progress of our efforts in meeting
our affirmative action goals for women and blacks.
As we set up our affirmative action
structure on campus under Dr. Clark's direction, we set up each school as a
separate unit with additional affirmative action units in Student Affairs, Libraries,
Business Affairs, University Extension and Special Units. Each had an affirmative
action coordinator in the school or unit who reported to the dean or to other
appropriate administrators and who was accessible to Dr. Clark. Each worked
within their own units to develop goals of employees in the following groups
of personnel: EPA Non-Faculty, EPA Faculty and SPA employees. Goals were set
for race and gender. This plan then got all of the units and even departments
or groups of departments to set their goals and make them a part of the program.
We hoped that this technique would make our faculty in each unit feel responsible
for reaching the set goals, and generally it did. In a few cases, departments
or units set goals above those that we would have considered minimal, but in
a few other cases we did have to ask a unit to reconsider their goals and to
try to come up with a higher goal. Goals were set on the basis of the number
of new doctorates in the field (or the appropriate terminal degree for the field)
and was also based on estimates of vacancies to occur and on anticipated increases
in faculty or staff in the unit. For SPA employees the goals were set on availability
figure of personnel in the field using other manpower data.
In the minutes of the Faculty Senate
in February the Good Neighbor Council reported that they endorsed the proposal
of Dr. Clark's that a Race Relations Workshop be conducted here by Urban Crises,
Inc. The first was held on February 27 and 28, 1975. I attended this first workshop.
This group held workshops here for many years. Most administrators, student
leaders and many faculty attended. C. T. Vivian, who held these workshops, continues
to come to the campus for a conference, a workshop or a meeting almost every
year. Our affirmative action goals for July 1, 1976, were stated as 44 black
faculty; in October of 1974 we had 17. The goal for women faculty was 114; in
October of 1974 we had 74.
I found a note to Chancellor Caldwell
from me dated January 7, 1975, about our newly submitted plans which read as
follows, "The recent article in The News and Observer made it sound
as if HEW, Atlanta, had rejected our Affirmative Action Proposal. Dr. Clark
checked with Richard Robinson an attorney on the UNC BOG staff. The article
misinterpreted Mr. Robinson. Our plans are still under review and have not been
returned."
While HEW staff and the courts were
at work and the litigation was going backwards and forwards, we felt a strong
commitment to succeed or at least to make as much progress as we could. We proceeded,
as did the other institutions of the UNC BOG system, with our affirmative action
goals and continued to strive to give African-American students a chance to
enroll and to succeed. A very special effort in this area was the University
Transition Program. A substantial number of students admitted in this program
have graduated from NCSU, and several have pursued their doctorates at NCSU
and at other universities. We did take a chance and the graduation rate was
relatively low, but I believe that our effort has paid off well. Another area
was the extra effort in the admissions office expended in the recruitment of
African-American students. Although we had other programs for helping these
students to survive, it was obvious that not enough was being done. Many of
these efforts are covered in Chapter One in Duties of Assistant and Associate
Provosts and in Chapter VII in Undergraduate Studies and in Academic Skills.
In 1975, Dr. Clark proposed that
we sponsor a conference on Minorities in graduate programs. He said that nationally
blacks received 2.7% of the doctorates awarded in 1973. Of these 60% were in
education. "Thus, the prospects are not bright for any substantial number
of blacks being available for faculty appointments in either black or white
institutions in the near future unless graduate and professional schools develop
a greater sense of urgency about this situation. I suggest that we here at NCSU
give some attention to increasing the graduate enrollment of qualified blacks."
The conference was to include individuals from North Carolina's predominately
black institutions, Pembroke State University and NCSU.
Although in most cases faculties
encouraged their undergraduate students to go to other universities for graduate
degrees, we encouraged our graduate programs first to convince blacks to go
to graduate school. If it would help to increase the numbers who went to graduate
school, they should recruit actively more of the black students to stay and
get graduate degrees at NCSU. In a few cases this has led to our being able
to hire the only new blacks in the nation in a particular field and they obtained
their doctorates at NCSU. One example which was successful was the school of
Textiles. Others who have doctorates from NCSU and who are now on the NCSU faculty
were mentioned earlier in this section. Also in 1975, Dr. Clark reported that
we increased our black faculty by four in 1974-75 and our non-faculty EPA by
two, yet we had a net loss of 11 black SPA personnel that year.
On May 28, 1976, I allocated new
positions to the Schools. At this time I was still not saying that a certain
number of positions had to be filled by blacks or women. I did say:
As you
are aware, we have made little progress during the past year in the employment
of blacks and females. I hope that these positions, as well as other positions
which are or will become vacant in your school, can be used to increase the
numbers in these two employee groups. While we are not asking you to employ
unqualified persons or saying that the positions cannot be used to employ
white males, we do expect you to make substantial progress in meeting your
school's affirmative action goals. We ask you to review new appointments with
this expectation in mind.
It was about this time that Dr.
Clark suggested that he and I visit each dean each year in their offices to
remind them of their goals and their progress or lack of progress in the hiring
of both blacks and women. It was not that the deans did not know the goals and
their progress in meeting them, it was to place a strong emphasis on NCSU's
commitment, that we expected a strong commitment on their parts and that we
expected success. On August 31, 1976, Dr. Clark reported that as of June 1,
1976, we had a total of 31 EPA non-faculty, 18 black full-time faculty members
and 553 full-time Black SPA employees.
At the May 2, 1977, meeting of President
Friday's Administrative Council there was a lengthy discussion of the Adams
vs. Califano trial, and President Friday discussed a meeting with the HEW staff.
In his remarks to the Board of Governors on April 8, 1977, President Friday
reported that Judge Pratt of the United States District Court for the District
of Columbia had, "in an order, directed the Department of Health Education
and Welfare to invalidate the desegregation plans of North Carolina and five
other states, approved by HEW in 1974, and to require these states to prepare
and file with HEW this summer desegregation plans that will conform to guidelines
to be prepared by HEW." This was a lengthy speech and it was followed some
days later by specific details required for a new plan. This became a major
activity for Dr. Clark and many others on our campus as they prepared materials
for the BOG staff who had to prepare the new plan.
On July 2, 1977, the Governor received
a letter from HEW saying that the revised plan must be submitted in 60 days
and that the Office of Civil rights in HEW would then have 120 days to respond
to the new plan. I recall our distress with the short time that we had to get
the plan in, and the fact that HEW could take twice as much time to study and
to respond as we had to develop the plan. Early in September the plan Phase
II was submitted. Dr. Clark wrote on May 4, 1978:
Provost
Winstead and I attended a meeting of all Chief Academic Officers and Affirmative
Action Officers called by Vice President Raymond Dawson and Mr. Jeffrey Orleans.
We were informed that one of the items in the State Plan Phase II under current
negotiations with HEW is the employment of faculty.
The statement goes on to say that
there will be greater responsibility on each chief academic officer in developing
and carrying our affirmative action plans. It also said, "The revised plans
must be completed in 60 to 75 days after approval or disapproval of the State
Plan II. The plans will be developed for five years ending on June 30, 1983."
On October 24, 1978, Mr. Ronald
Butler reported to the Faculty Senate on the findings of a Special Task Force
appointed by Chancellor Thomas to study NCSU's image in the black community.
That report and the discussion can be found in the Senate's minutes of 1978-79
on pages 57-63. I will quote only a very few comments. Needless to say our image
was horrible. "North Carolina State University is a very conservative institution
and is viewed as racist and red-necked. We do not really know the black community;
we don't communicate effectively. Our negative image may be hurting our enrollment
of Black students, especially from Wake County. We enrolled only eight Black
students from Wake last year. I know from experience that it can be very frustrating
to apply for a job at this University. I interviewed for many positions for
which I felt qualified, but I ended up in housekeeping. Did you know that there
are still lounges on this campus where the maids and janitors do not feel welcome
to eat their lunches, even though the room is often empty. N. C. State is in
the community, but not of the community. State's image to many blacks is still:
if you want to be a farmer, go to State. There is a need to communicate our
programs. State is constantly put down in the Black community. I attended NCSU
for my master's degree and experienced behavior which justifies your image."
The report prepared by this committee was distributed widely. Dr. Clark served
on the Task Force. The task force recommended 16 specific changes, many of which
have been implemented, at least in part, and some of these have exceeded the
scope of the original recommendation. We had shown a video for several years
that was developed shortly after Dr. Clark came to NCSU and it was now out of
date. In the spring of 1979 another was developed which was widely shown on
campus as a part of the image issue.
In 1978 Chancellor Joab Thomas held
the first Brotherhood Diner and our honoree was Dr. Samual Nesbritt. The guest
speaker for the evening was Dr. Ozell Sutton from Atlanta, Georgia. Our Brotherhood
dinner was not institutionalized until 1982 after Chancellor Bruce Poulton came
to NCSU.
In 1978 we reported on a variety
of new and current initiatives to increase the enrollment of minority students
to the President and to the staff of BOG. I will list a sample of these.
1. Meeting
with black students on campus to obtain suggestions and recommendations for
increasing minority enrollment.
2. Inviting
high school councilors from Wake and surrounding counties to a meeting to
discuss minority recruitment and enrollment.
3. Interviewing
marginal black applicants in cooperation with black faculty resulted in 53
recommendations for admission for the fall of 1978.
4. Concentrating
minority recruitment on secondary schools that had a large number of black
students.
5. Hosting
130 accepted students on campus for Pan-African weekend.
6. Utilizing
black students as hosts/hostesses for campus visits by black prospective students
during the year.
7. Utilizing
currently enrolled black students as good will ambassadors in their hometowns
during school vacation periods.
8. Involve
black faculty in recruiting.
9. Use
of alumni in recruiting.
10. Invite
all black high school seniors to All University Day and to offer the services
of the admissions office to discuss future educational plans.
11. Involve
the admissions staff and black faculty in the black community through church
and civic visits.
12. Involvement
of the black SPA staff in recruiting activities with an emphasis on Wake County.
13.
Make tentative early financial aid awards to black student applicants.
14. Award
a scholarship to one black and one white student from each Wake County high
school. The objective was to encourage enrollment of academically talented
black students from Wake who rarely came to NCSU and went where they could
get a scholarship. Later we were able to get an additional $50,000 for fifty
$1,000 scholarship awards to the best academically prepared black students
who were accepted and who did not have another scholarship. This worked well
in getting the best academically prepared students for a while, but it later
developed that other universities followed suit, and we had to expand this,
with the help of the schools and their foundation funds, to extend many of
these to four year awards based on satisfactory performance.
15. The
engineering MITE program was expanded.
16. We
had a cooperative degree program with NCA&T in Food Science.
The peer student program was initiated
first in SALS. Two upper-class black students were hired to contact currently
enrolled black students and new students during the year and to advise and encourage
them to seek assistance and to inform them where the assistance could be obtained
when needed. It was later that this program was expanded by Vice Chancellors
Talley and Stafford to a Peer Mentor program so that successful African-American
upper-class students were mentors for all entering freshmen. It was at about
this time that we began to add or expand compensatory courses in English, mathematics
and reading primarily for those students who came with academic deficiencies.
While one objective was to overcome deficiencies for the black students and
to help them to succeed at NCSU, it turned out that they were needed by many
of the white students too.
It was at about this time that I
realized that the departments and schools would not add enough black faculty
to meet our affirmative action goals without further encouragement. It was a
disappointment to me to learn that Dr. Clark's and my encouragement to do what
was right did not work adequately, but I now knew that units had, in their own
minds, other goals of high or even higher priority. With this knowledge I finally
had found a procedure that worked. People really worked hard to recruit for
and to get the positions for their units. So I began the practice of continuing
to encourage the filling of newly allocated and vacant positions with blacks
and females, but I also reserved a set of positions each year from this time
until I retired that could only be filled with blacks. In other words, if you
could find a black faculty member who would come to NCSU you would get likely
get an extra position. This was not completely open-ended, but it nearly was.
While I did not set up a similar number of positions for women, I tried to make
certain that we did not fail to hire a female faculty member because of the
lack of positions. This is described further in the preceding section on women.
We were at this time making much better progress in most areas in finding female
faculty. The number of black faculty in the national pool was still very small.
On March 16, 1979, I allocated a
position to the Graduate school for an Assistant Dean for Minority affairs.
We had decided to award the position when funds became available, so the Graduate
School had already selected Dr. Witherspoon for the position at the time that
I obtained and allocated the funds. Dr. Witherspoon was supposed to retain a
research commitment in his department and it was expected that he would help
the campus in recruiting and advise units on better methods for recruiting black
graduate students. He was also to help the entire campus community understand
better the concerns and problems of black graduate students. Dr. Witherspoon
developed the agenda for the position and developed one of the outstanding networks
in the nation for the recruitment of black graduate students to NCSU. He became
the person that black graduate students went to when they had academic problems
they could not get resolved elsewhere. He became a mentor to them for they came
to see him about personal problems too. In this position Dr. Witherspoon managed
the Minority Presence Grant Funds appropriated to NCSU via the BOG. He allocated
these funds primarily as a supplement to other small assistantship funds to
individual students and to students who did not have assistantships. We began
to reward him primarily for his efforts in the Graduate School rather than for
his contributions to the Department of Botany.
On May 21, 1979, Dr. Jenkins who
had obtained a law degree from UNC-CH and was now our University Attorney informed
Dr. Clark, Mr. Worsley and me that we would soon be involved in an affirmative
action compliance review. He advised us to get ready for such a review. This
always happened if an institution received a grant of $1,000,000 or more and
this was to be our first one-million-dollar-grant-caused investigation. He said
that based on the experience at other institutions, we could count on the entire
process being hurried with resulting pressure on us to be able to respond quickly
to reasonable requests for information. He said that at UNC-Chapel Hill which
had recently undergone a similar review, they were requested to provide information
within three working days. We then were given a list of items that had been
requested there and proceeded to gather the information which indeed was requested
later and with a short notice for compliance. We would never have been able
to have generated this data on time without the advanced warning. Thank goodness
we now can retrieve data about faculty much faster because of the computer.
We later had many more grants of that magnitude. Most grants reviews at NCSU
were reviewed with the Department of Labor. Except for the first review we had
so many grants of that magnitude that we were rarely reviewed more than once
a year, and thank goodness not even every year.
On June 12 ,1978, HEW provisionally
accepted the State Plan II for the Elimination of Racial Duality. On February
21, the HEW team, consisting among others of David Tatel and Mary Berry, came
to NCSU. They were visiting all of the predominately black campuses and the
NCSU, UNC-CH and UNC-Greensboro campuses as well as the General Administration.
This was a very tedious and nerve-wracking visit. The group visiting us, for
some reason, wanted to visit several buildings where there might be autoclaves
although these were not on the original itinerary. We visited most originally
scheduled areas but not all. We also visited several not on the schedule. Since
the visitors were late in arriving, in several cases there were no persons around
in the unscheduled areas to tell them what was going on in this or that laboratory.
In Mechanical Engineering an undergraduate student was the only person present
in the building. He was working on a senior project and did a magnificent job
explaining his project. I was proud of him and later told him, his department
head and dean. I did the best job of explaining that I could. I later labeled
this as the "visit to the autoclaves." It did not seem that the visiting
team was here to see what we were doing and that their minds were made up already.
Many conferences were held over the next two months between HEW and UNC. On
March 26, 1979, the University was informed that HEW had rejected the State
Plan. On April 25, 1979, after attending a meeting called by President Friday
that Chancellor Thomas couldn't attend, I wrote the Chancellor saying: "The
President indicated that Califano was scheduled to start deferring grants effective
May 2, 1979." This was so very important to us for almost all of our research
funds came from the federal government. "The University filed an injunction
against HEW in the Eastern District Court at 4 p. m. on April 24, 1979. You
will receive a copy of the 80 plus page action. If we do not win here, then
the process will take the administrative proceedings route."
At a Faculty Senate meeting on August
26, 1980, I reported that we were well on our way to meeting our goals in tenure
track positions. We had 26 black faculty with a goal of 36 by 1983. We had 124
females in the tenure track with a goal of 132. At the general faculty meeting
I did remind the faculty that we had a net gain of only three new blacks and
nine new females.
In 1980 Chancellor Thomas received
the following letter related to the Race Relations Seminars from Elizabeth Wheeler
who was Head of the History Department. Some controversy on campus was developing
about whether they should continue. She wrote:
It is
my understanding that there is some question whether or not the Race Relations
Seminars conducted by C. T. Vivian will be continued. I was fortunate in being
able to attend one of the two-day seminars in 1976. It was one of the most
exhausting--at the same time the most valuable--experiences I have ever had.
Although it was four years ago the memory of that seminar has not dimmed.
We were asked to return to campus and share our experiences with our colleagues.
This I found difficult to do and firmly believe that everyone on our campus
should have the opportunity to participate in these seminars. I am well aware
that many of this campus concentrate on how far we have come instead of how
far we have to go, and I also believe that we have not escaped the national
backlash. In my opinion, this is not the time to relax our efforts. I strongly
recommend that the Race Relations Seminars be continued.
And they were continued.
On April 24, 1979, the Consent Decree
was issued by the federal court and the fight between The State of North Carolina,
in so far as the UNC System was concerned, was ended. I did call for a number
of new initiatives, but we had continued to do those things called for in our
earlier plan and were thereby nearly on target to accomplish our goals. While
progress was being made in all areas we were still not at the enrollment levels
we had wanted and were working towards in undergraduate enrollment, nor were
we moving as well as desired in the arena of producing more blacks with doctorates
at NCSU. The entire country was not succeeding in this faculty production arena
so while we were not achieving our goals for black faculty we were making progress.
These goals always seemed to be just beyond our grasp. When we hired four or
six new faculty it seemed that we lost two or three of those already present
to better offers, not always in salary, but because of such things as working
conditions and fringe benefits.
In 1982 we received a scare. We
thought that the Federal Government was about to cut our federal funds for a
lack of compliance with Title VI. It seemed that we were now on a list put out
by the Office of Equal Opportunity in the Department of Education. It turned
out that this was a mistake. It took a lot of time on the part of Henry Smith,
the Dean for Research, and others to get us off the no-awards lists of federal
agencies. This was essential so that our grants for research would not be withheld.
In 1982 in a letter to Governor
Hunt whose services we sought, I described that we, Dr. Clark and his staff
and Media Services in SHASS, were about to make a videotape of interviews which
would document the progress of Black involvement and enrollment at this University
from 1956 to 1982. In 1982 Dr. Talley made a number of proposals that would
help in the recruitment and retention of black students to the Chancellor. Many
of these were adopted. Some examples were, "To coordinate admissions and
financial aid efforts so that all eligible minority students receive prompt
and maximum packages of financial aid." He also proposed giving upper-class
black students a chance to live on campus rather than just being in the lottery.
He proposed that we develop a Freshman Year Division on campus and to provide
separate advisors for these students. This was the Chancellor's idea too. When
it was studied by the schools the idea didn't fly. He also proposed to revise
the current social and cultural programs available in the Student Center and
in the Residence Life Division. He made other proposals which would have required
us to hire more minority faculty and to assign them to functions with black
students. These were not put into place for we could not have found the needed
black faculty, and those that we did hire wanted to be part of their disciplines
instead of being in some other unit. Almost all did have concerns about the
progress of black students, and they gave their time and effort generously to
help black students succeed academically at NCSU.
Vice Chancellor Talley was concerned
that some persons on campus felt that Student Affairs was anti-black. I don't
know where this came from, for back in the early and mid-seventies, when we
were trying so hard to get some blacks hired among our faculty and EPA personnel,
Dr. Talley took the lead and required that some positions be filled by black
candidates. He was the first administrator of a major unit to take such a stand.
Dr. Stafford continued this effort when he replaced Dr. Talley.
In 1984 Dean Hamby wrote Chancellor
Poulton and commented on the School of Textile's efforts to recruit black students.
Some of the things mentioned included the following. Textiles was the first
school on campus to supplement the activities of the Admissions Office to actively
recruit black students. They also were the first to print a brochure especially
designed for recruiting black students and this was done some time before any
court action. It was done because, "We felt impelled to take a leadership
posture and because the industry was in need of management development personnel."
They had awarded two out of 16 of the North Carolina Textile Foundation's Merit
Awards to blacks, and had graduated fifty-six blacks over the last five years.
They developed a special program to improve advising and counseling and "to
improve the atmosphere, academic performance, and thus retention of black students."
He goes on to say that the recruiting of graduate students was still a problem.
He said, "We have tried all of the ideas that have been suggested to us
plus some of our own but with unacceptable results. We will continue with additional
effort this coming year. The need for black graduate students is even greater
than that for undergraduates."
On April 20, 1984, Dr. Clark reported
on the undergraduate merit scholarships awarded by schools at NCSU. The numbers
by school were as follows: SALS, 3; Design, 0; Education 10; Engineering, 31;
Forestry had none designated for black students, but did award scholarships
to blacks; Humanities, 0; PAMS, 0; and Textiles 9. Each of the schools did award
other non-designated scholarships to blacks. The University had 50 such scholarships
that were not earmarked for students in a particular school and were awarded
to the best black applicants who had no other scholarships.
On April 24, 1984, Dr. Clark reported
on progress in meeting the Consent Decree goals to the Faculty Senate. The minutes
read as follows:
Dr. Clark
stated that it is our responsibility to try to increase black enrollment on
campus to 10.2% of the student body by 1986. This fall we would like to have
515 black freshmen and transfer students. Out of 1000 black applications,
50% have a predicted GPA of 2.0 or higher and NCSU is trying to increase enrollment
of the number of black students whose predicted GPA is 2.0 or above.
The following
actions are being taken: a) rearrangement of financial aid, b) expansion of
summer programs designed to help black students adjust to NCSU, c) adding
one day to freshmen orientation for black students, d) use minority coordinators
in each school in an attempt to preempt problems, e) direct course placement.
A number of these actions are designed to build self-confidence, self -esteem,
and identify strong support people for black students. The academic success
of blacks has been improved by supportive individuals concentrating on long
term goals, advising students on how to cope with racism, and helping them
to network for a sense of community.
Several Senators expressed the need
to improve the retention rate of blacks without lowering standards. Dr. Clark
responded, "There is a need for workshops within the white faculty. The
black student in most cases will not seek help unless it is a crises situation
because of the stigma often associated with seeking help. Our white colleagues
need to be aware of this and seek out black students who are in difficulty."
He added that as long as NCSU maintains a 2.0 standard for graduation, the GPA
computation under consideration will not lower standards.
It was in 1985 that we decided to
try a new approach. We decided to lower our admissions guidelines for the University
Predicted GPA for black students with the hope that if we provided them with
more assistance with the compensatory courses now in place and the summer Transition
Program, that we might be able to have more of these students succeed academically
at NCSU. We admitted a few black students with a UPGA below 1.5 and a few as
low as 1.25. This experiment, needless to say, did not succeed, and we lost
almost all of this lower echelon of admitted students. Thus we came to the conclusion
that we needed to stick to our guidelines except for a few selected special
student exceptions for admissions (see the Admissions section in Chapter Six).
We agreed that we simply couldn't admit students at this level of preparation
again. We simply did not have in place what the students needed to make them
successful. Thus, we realized that we would not be able to use this strategy
to make progress and achieve our goal of 10.2%. It did not seem that the population
of students in the academic range required to succeed at NCSU was increasing
in high school and the competition for their recruitment grew fiercer every
year. We simply had too few large scholarships to compete for most of the most
academically qualified black high school graduates. Our greatest hope to increase
the enrollment of black undergraduate students was to increase retention of
those already enrolled. We looked at the admissions criteria for the UPGA (we
later called this the Admissions Index or AI). We knew that we admitted, on
the average, black freshmen with slightly better academic credentials than did
UNC-CH, but we flunked more and had more drop out, while UNC-CH graduated more.
The reason that we knew this was true was that the staff at BOG told us every
year when we had our Consent Decree conference on the numbers of black students
admitted, retained, graduated and enrolled.
We began to try the new approach
mentioned by Dr. Clark in his remarks to the Senate, about the minority coordinators
to assist in student retention. In 1981 the School of Engineering did have a
full-time EPA black coordinator in the Dean's Office who was working with black
students and helping them to solve their problems with some success. We had
been struggling with ideas of how we might provide more assistance to black
students, for our retention wasn't nearly as good as it needed to be. Then we
began to establish, over time, a Coordinator for African-American Student Affairs
in each school. The last school to get a coordinator was the School of Design,
which had the smallest number of African-American students. Charles Joyner filled
this position in addition to his other duties. This person in each school would
get to know these students and assist them in getting help to solve their problems.
We also hoped that it would provide an African-American professional whom the
students would trust and come to with academic and other problems before these
problems became acute and before the students left us. This goal was accomplished
and engineering now has several persons who work in this area today. The group
from the schools/colleges now meets frequently to share ideas, problems and
solutions. Each coordinator reported to their school dean, but they also were
called together by Dr. Clark. After Dr. Witherspoon became Associate Provost,
he assumed the responsibility to provide advice and coordination to this group.
The first reference to the possibility
of a new African-American Cultural Center that I noted was in a letter of November
25, 1984, from Chancellor Poulton. He also talked about the possible renovation
of the building that was then used as a Cultural Center (the old Print Shop
building).
In 1984 Dr. Jenkins, our University
Attorney, reported on progress towards the Consent Decree goals. It looked as
if we would not reach the goal of 10.2% black enrollment by 1986 at our pace
of progress. Dr. Jenkins did present the results of our effort in a positive
way. He said that our black enrollment had increased by 700% since 1972 and
that we had an increase of 32% in our black enrollment and only 4% in white
enrollment since 1980. He also said that NCSU had a larger black enrollment
than Elizabeth City State University and greater than any private black institution
in North Carolina. In a few more years Chancellor Poulton would begin to say
that we had the largest black enrollment of any institutions in the State except
North Carolina A & T State University and North Carolina Central University.
This was still true in 1993, but we still had not reached the 10.2 % black enrollment
goal.
On January 8, 1985, Vice Chancellor
Turner wrote Mr. Worsley requesting a one-half time position for a black coordinator
to assist in the recruitment and retention of black adult students into the
LifeLong Learning component of Extension and Public Service. Dr. Clark and I
had advised Dr. Turner that this component had very few black students enrolled
and that if we were to meet our goals enrollment of African-Americans in the
Adult Credit Programs would have to be increased too. We had encouraged the
hiring of such a person. The Chancellor wrote back to Dr. Turner and said that
he (Turner) should find the money. Later that same year Dr. Turner developed
a plan to try to market our adult offerings more effectively to blacks. When
we next got some resources we did provide some funds for this purpose and Extension
provided some. This effort continues. However, the desired enrollment of black
adults has not been reached in this area of NCSU's activities.
On April 11, 1985, the Chancellor
mentioned in correspondence with Dr. Turner that:
I have
invited a group of nine or ten prominent black leaders to sit on a permanent
advisory committee to North Carolina State University. Their charge simply
stated is to provide us with feedback on the image of North Carolina State
University in the black community and how that image could be strengthened
particularly to enhance the recruitment of students, faculty and staff. The
second part of their charge relates to how may North Carolina State University
better serve the black community. Obviously your efforts fall primarily in
the latter category but would also deal with the first charge.
This is now called the Chancellor's
African-American Community Leaders Advisory Committee. He continued and said,
"By this letter I am asking that before you attempt to make your plans
operational would you run them by Dr. Lawrence Clark, who is advising me in
this effort, to make sure that they are consistent with the overall thrust that
the university is making to the black community." The Chancellor and the
Provost along with Dr. Clark had meetings with black citizens and advisory groups
over the years. This action by Poulton institutionalized the concept and put
it on a continuous basis.
The MSEN project is described in
part in what follows, but it is a project started as an experimental project
funded first by a grant first at NCSU, North Carolina Central University and
UNC-CH.
The UNC
Mathematics and Science Education Network (MSEN) then came into existence
in 1986 after studies revealed the serious under representation of minorities
and females in academic or college preparatory math and science courses. The
program was developed by Dr. Lawrence Clark, Associate Provost at North Carolina
State University, with the support of an appropriation by the North Carolina
General Assembly. The MSEN Pre-College Program seeks to increase the pool
of under represented students who graduate from North Carolina high schools
prepared to pursue careers in mathematics and science based fields; increase
the representation of minorities and women in academic college bound math
and science classes in high school; and encourage students to consider careers
in mathematics, the sciences, technology, engineering and education.
The Pre-College Program now operates
from six centers in the state: NCSU, ECU, NCA&T, UNC-Charlotte, Fay-etteville
State University, and UNC-CH. The NCSU program offers services to students in
Wake and Johnston Counties consisting of a middle school program (six schools)
in which students meet daily as a pre-college elective class in which they increase
their skills in math, science, communication, and cultural awareness. Additionally,
sessions are held which consist of school visits by community role models, field
trips, and other activities to broaden the students' awareness. The high school
program (four schools) consists of student involvement in Academic Chapters
for Excellence which meets once a week after school for group learning sessions,
tutoring, and the development of student leadership skills. Academic Centers
for Excellence students also attend a week-long summer session on the campus
of NCSU for exposure to math/science projects, computer training, problem solving
exercises and accelerated English courses. Students also participate in Math/Science
competitions that allow students to design their own projects and compare their
work in a competitive setting thereby gaining valuable research experience and
recognition by their peers and the professional community. All of these activities
culminate in Recognition Awards given at the End-of-the-Year Banquet in May
for Pre-College students who maintain at least a B plus average in required
mathematics, science and English courses. Additionally, there are other aspects
of the Pre-College Program that involve parents and teachers as participants
in seminars and workshops, in service education, planning sessions and tutoring. As of 1994 there were over 400 students
in the MSEN Pre-College Program in the Wake and Johnston County Public School
Systems with at least 600 parents in a support role. This program is an effective
partnership among students, educators, university faculty, scientists, business
leaders, parents, and government, demonstrating that when students are assisted
in developing competencies, exposed to possibilities, and encouraged by a variety
of role models, they are able to achieve success and live unfettered by ignorance.
In 1986 the Chancellor proposed
that each year I get a statement from the Deans of progress of untenured black
faculty towards tenure. It had become obvious that in some cases they were not
making progress and black faculty were so hard to find that it was necessary
for us to do all we could to assure that no deserving person failed to make
tenure. I began to get these annual reports, and found that the activities of
several faculty would not meet the guidelines for promotion or tenure. For example,
we found one faculty member in a unit that would never recommend tenure without
substantial research activity. Yet the person had undertaken and volunteered
for a number of worthwhile projects and his till was filled, yet one could see
that he would not make it. I could not understand why the department had let
the person pursue these activities to the exclusion of a significant research
project. After the dean saw the report he recognized the same problem. We were
able to get this person's assignments changed, and the faculty member did gain
tenure. In other cases we were not as successful. In many cases we asked the
department head to spell out in writing specifically what the faculty must accomplish
to gain tenure. In most cases this worked, but in a few others it did not. At
least we felt that we had tried and those faculty that we lost because they
did not gain tenure were adequately informed soon enough to overcome their deficiencies.
In 1986 the NCSU Trustees approved
the appointment of the first African-American to the position of department
head. Dr. Don C. Locke became Head of the Department of Counselor Education.
Also in 1986, the Council on African-American Affairs resubmitted a proposal
made by the same group in 1984 which had not been acted upon. These included:
"Establish a series of African-American Speakers with the speakers being
nationally recognized for their area of expertise. Hold a series of leadership
conferences and/or retreats for African-American student leaders." This
had been implemented by Student Affairs.
Develop
an appropriate mechanism for increased interaction between African-American
faculty and students. This will reinforce the students self image by providing
role models for professional accomplishments. Identify cultural supportive
activities in the Raleigh and Research Triangle communities and encourage
students to participate. Develop a series of programs oriented toward Africa
and its role in developing the cultural and social character of African-American
society. Develop a series of programs oriented toward the problems facing
the African-American family structure and potential solutions to these problems.
For a program based upon these activities
to be successful, it must be recognized as a part of the overall educational
process for African-American students. Thus, a heavy faculty involvement in
developing the ideas and concepts for these programs is essential. However,
it is not appropriate for African-American faculty to totally take the development
of these programs while at the same time develop their professional careers
for possible consideration of promotion and tenure. Thus, it is also important
that appropriate staff be provided to develop, supervise, and control these
activities. This staff must be coordinated by the appropriate University Official
(or his/her designate). It is our opinion that such a program would best fit
under the Academic Affairs part of the overall University structure.
Most of these were approved. At
first the program reported through Dr. Clark and later through Dr. Witherspoon.
After we obtained a Cultural Center, Dr. Iyailu Moses became its Director. The
international activities have also progressed. We sent a group of 50 faculty
and students first to Togo and to two additional countries in 1989. That was
a great trip with interesting experiences for our students and faculty. The
excitement of the students as I saw them off from Raleigh-Durham Airport was
unbelievable. I told them that they couldn't leave unless they were properly
dressed, so I gave each of them a plastic Wolfpack pin to wear in their lapels.
When they returned they all had many souvenirs, and they brought me back one
too, a gold Wolfpack lapel pin made in Togo. While there they visited other
neighboring countries too and learned the difficulties and the bureaucracy of
moving from one place to another. They also learned about the freedom which
we have to take pictures and to go where we wish, but which does not exist in
some other places. Dr. Clark raised the supporting funds for this trip by getting
resources from a number of sources, and each school contributed some funds.
Additional programs with colleges in Africa are mentioned in Chapter Six in
the discussion on International Programs.
On December 22, 1986, in a letter
to Chancellor Poulton, Richard Robinson acknowledged receipt of NCSU's revised
affirmative action plan. The letter also stated that the BOG did extend for
two additional years the commitments concerning employment established by the
Consent Decree through December, 1988.
On April 28, 1987, Dr. Clark responded
to a request from President C. D. Spangler Jr. to provide him with efforts made
at NCSU in the recruitment and retention of black students and the employment
of black faculty. Among the things described were the C. T. Vivian Seminars,
the African-American Symposium for all entering black freshmen, the African-American
Coordinators, Leadership Conferences for Black Students, Workshops for Black
Faculty, the African-American Colloquium series to give black faculty the opportunity
to present topics in their own disciplines, the Academic Skills Program, the
University Transition Program, the Chancellor's Advisory Council, and bringing
in consultants to advise about the retention of black students and other minorities.
Some consultants mentioned included, Alfred Pasteur, William Sedlacek, Alexander
Astin, Charles Nettles, and Jaqueline Fleming.
In 1988 Becky French, University
Attorney, received a letter protesting a search in the History Department for
a black faculty member for one of the positions which I was willing to allocate
only if a black person was found and recommend for the position. The anonymous
writer also said that ostensibly the department had been told that if they did
not fill this position with a black they would never receive another position.
Of course that threat was never made or implied, but it is quite probable that
the dean confirmed that this position could only be filled by a black, which
was true. Anonymous letters leave one with no way to combat false rumors. The
advertisement for the history opening read as follows, "The History Department
at North Carolina State University. Field and rank are open. Salary dependent
on rank. The History Department has a special commitment to affirmative action.
Minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Letters of application and curricula
vitae" et cetera. This advertisement was obviously intended to mean that
they wanted to hire an African-American. There were a number of persons on campus
who objected to my allocating positions that could only be filled by a black
or my allocating additional positions when a search turned up an excellent woman
who was not the department's top choice. We did not require an additional affirmative
action search for these additional positions. It is true that I would have given
a second position if a department could have landed a second excellent black
in a search. As I indicated earlier I used this technique because departments
did not find many blacks without the reward of an extra position. I know of
one case where a faculty member complained about my approach and gave as evidence
that they had hired a black in his department without pressure. He didn't know
that this was also a position that I gave the dean to give to this department
to hire the first black faculty member in that department.
On April 27, 1988, we discussed
additional needs, such as a better balance of black faculty to black students,
an African-American Studies minor and a Racial Harassment Policy which would
parallel the Sexual Harassment Policy. The Chancellor also reported that "Black
students feel that they are not wanted on this campus." The Chancellor
then said that there was no obvious solution except to promote an awareness
of and concern for all students
In 1988 we adopted a revised policy
on race relations. It read in part as follows:
Racial
bias or harassment is a form of race discrimination in violation of Federal
law and North Carolina State University policy, and will not be tolerated.
North Carolina State University is committed to assuring equal opportunity
and to opposing discrimination because of race, sex, age, religion, national
origin, handicap or veteran's status. Faculty, staff, and students should
be aware that violation of this policy could lead to disciplinary action.
North Carolina State University
hereby affirms its desire to maintain a work and academic environment for all
employees and a study environment for all students that is humane, fair and
responsive. North Carolina State University wishes to maintain an environment
which supports and regards career and educational goals on the basis of such
relevant factors as ability and work performance. Conduct or action that is
based on a person's race or color creates a hostile working/learning environment
that prevents effective learning or work performance, and it is in opposition
to a campus environment free of discrimination.
On April 25, 1988, Dr. Clark wrote:
"If you look in depth at the concerns that the African-American students
around the nation on predominately white campuses have raised, you will find
that these concerns grow out of a deeper struggle for the search for their own
perceptions of reality. They are searching for a true sense of their own identity
and groping with their own concept of humanity and fairness. In addition they
are seeking a sense of acceptance and a feeling of belonging in environments
that are alien." He also said:
Moreover
I believe that we will discover that the African-Americans are participating
in two different cultural realities simultaneously, and the complexity which
is associated with this bi-culturalization will give a much better understanding
of the African-American experience." He later said "The issue of
African-American Studies illustrates the point that the students are not asking
for a mere set of courses. This demand is interwoven with their search for
their own identity and a positive self-concept. History then becomes the mirror
through which they look to discover and know themselves and their possibilities.
It is in this context that history, as a social science, and African-American
history as a people-specific forum, contributes to the intellectual and political
emancipation of African-Americans in five basic ways: (1) as a source of self-understanding;
(2) as a source of understanding of society and world; (3) as a measure of
a people's humanity; (4) as a corrective for racism self -indulgent myths
and (5) as a source of models to emulate.
On June 9, 1988, a committee to
form a minor in African-American Studies was established by Dean Toole with
Dr. Clark, Dr. Witherspoon and Dr. Grant and others as members. The committee
was chaired by Dr. Tom Hammond. The minor was established and was housed in
University Studies (now Multidisciplinary Studies). Dr. Hammond continued to
chair the program in 1993. I do not know whether it achieved all those goals
that Dr. Clark spelled out, but it has contributed to our efforts at the University.
On February 29, 1988, I wrote to
the Coordinators of African American Advising and said:
At the
forum on Racism held Thursday night, February 25, African-American students
raised several very pertinent issues which I feel should be addressed at several
levels within the academic divisions. I observed also that because of time
constraints there were persons still standing in line to speak when the academic
portion of the question and answer session ended.
I am
asking that you as African-American Coordinator in your college/school do
two things in conjunction with your dean. First, draw together a cadre of
students from a cross section of your school's African-American population
including first year freshmen as well as the full range of your continuing
students. (a) Then, meet with these students to identify issues relating to
the experience of African-American students that they feel should be addressed,
and (b) meet with other African-American coordinators and compile a list of
such concerns to be forwarded to me through Dr. Clark's office.
Second,
I ask that you plan ongoing meetings throughout each academic year with the
African-American students in your school. These meetings should serve as a
means of feedback and dialogue for you, your dean, and faculty.
It was obvious to us that most of
the concerns and problems of students needed to be addressed at the classroom,
at the department and at the school levels. Most of these issues were not all
University encompassing. Issues needed to be heard more nearly in the environment
where they could be resolved.
In 1988 on April 6, 1988, I wrote
Dean Toole and said: "A black student told me that you teach Japanese,
why not Swahili?" Toole responded, "Why not?" So we began to
teach Swahili. At first we taught this language to fairly large sections and
then to only a very few students. It is so difficult to keep knowledge of and
interest in such an offering before the students when there are so many courses
listed in the catalogue and in the schedule of courses.
On February 11, 1989, a Racial Harassment
policy was adopted by the North Carolina State University Board of Trustees.
On November 4, 1989, I reported
to the General Faculty meeting that we now had 64 African-American administrators
and tenure track faculty, a net increase of nine over the previous year. Our
goal for 1991 was 77. We had 213 women in this category with a goal of 248.
This was sort of my swan song report and I said, "I wish to appeal to you
for your assistance in helping us meet our goals in the hiring of African-American
faculty and in the hiring of female faculty. We feel that many of our departments
are quite committed to affirmative action, not only in the letter of the law,
but in the spirit of the law as well. As we begin our second century of service
to the people of North Carolina, we want to continue our efforts in being truly
a People's University."
Dr. August Witherspoon came to the
Provost's Office from the position of Associate Dean of the Graduate School
and Professor of Botany. I had begun to realize the need for additional help
in the area of undergraduate affairs dealing with the performance and problems
of our African-American students. This was in addition to that which Dr. Clark
could provide for he had so many other responsibilities. I recognized that we
needed this more than I had realized after I substituted for Chancellor Poulton
at an airing of grievances that our African-American Students held one evening
in the Stewart Theater. I did not know what to expect, and had anticipated that
I was going to answer questions of what the Provost was doing to try to enhance
the academic success of African-American students. The questions started out
with: Did you know? Or why did you let? It seemed to me that the students had
put together all of their real and some possible but not real complaints here
at NCSU and directed them to me for a response. Some were those that I had been
working hardest to solve. Others dealt with matters that were occurring or had
occurred in one or more department or classroom and that I had never heard before.
The ones which I remember that my answers seemed to upset the students most
were: "Why didn't our Black Literature courses count in meeting graduation
requirements for literature?" I did not know that they didn't and had never
heard the complaint before. It turned out that the faculty in SHASS did not
accept these courses for its literature requirement, but that the course was
accepted to satisfy literature requirements in all other schools and colleges
at NCSU. When I investigated this and found that CHASS did not accept the course
for the literature requirement, I asked the Dean to try to make a change. He
raised the issue within his college, but the faculty did not want a change and
continued not to accept the course for that basic requirement. The course could
meet humanities electives in CHASS. Another thing that upset them was that the
data they had on black faculty was in error and I told them so. When I looked
into the matter I found that someone in Institutional Research had given them
data but had omitted from the totals all black faculty who had any administrative
responsibilities, including assistant department heads and a number of other
professors who had some part-time administrative duties. I recall the young
man accusing me of fabricating the numbers because my own staff had given him
the other figures which he thought were correct. Of course, we had worked hard
on the recruitment and hiring of black faculty and while I would have liked
to have had more success, I felt that we were doing better than any other predominantly
white institution that I knew of. There were a number of other issues raised
that might have had more progress made toward their solution if the Provost
had a staff-person whose responsibilities dealt with a greater interface with
African-American students. Chancellor Poulton and I had an additional meeting
with these and additional students later in the same year. When the opportunity
came, we were able to get the funds which were used to create the facilitator
position. So in 1989 we established a position for an Associate Provost as Facilitator
of African-American Affairs. While not all of Witherspoon's duties dealt with
African-American issues, most did. Any assignment might be given to this position
on an ad hoc basis. In time the position responsibilities have come to include
helping in the interview process of all associate professors, reviewing and
making recommendations for faculty promotion and tenure, coordinating college
dean reviews, and serving as liaison between faculty bodies and administration
on academic matters. As the Facilitator of African-American Affairs, responsibilities
included the University Recruitment and Retention Programs; the programmatic
activities of the African-American Cultural Center; and a liaison role with
African-American faculty and staff organizations and African-American student
organizations. Witherspoon as a facilitator tried to bring greater sharing and
exchange of ideas and successes among the Coordinators of African-American Student
Affairs positions in each of the Schools and Colleges. He helped them to acquire
information of successful activities at other universities. This position served
as an ex-officio officer for the Chancellor's Advisory Council and the Chancellor's
African-American Community Leaders Advisory Committee. Dr. Witherspoon also
developed a course for all African-American Freshmen with similar objectives
to those developed for the freshman course in Undergraduate
Studies (see Chapter Seven).
He visualized and established the
African-American Heritage Society which gives the students an opportunity to
learn and to be positive about African-Americans' contributions in the various
areas of knowledge. The plan was to see and learn about the scholarly contributions
of a large number of African-Americans and to ensure that all African-American
students had a link to their intellectual cultural heritage. Another part of
this program was to bring in a significant number of today's African-American
Scholars in addition to those who would visit the academic department of the
University. Another major effort of Dr. Witherspoon's was to see the African-American
Cultural Center come into being. He worked on this effort for many years before
he joined my staff. As Associate Provost he was to help plan the development
of the academic component of the program of this center. The concept was to
make available to the entire NCSU community a variety of activities that would
bring an array of cultural heritage and current African-American activities
into the lives and educational activities of our Black students. The plan was
for our students of all races to become involved and thereby provide for and
enhance the education of all. He saw this as a way that we could develop a better
understanding of cultural diversity and to enhance and to develop closer relations
for people of all races.
In 1988 at the Dean's council meeting,
we discussed the newly proposed African-American Heritage Societies. Dr. Witherspoon's
description and rationale follows:
The purpose
of an organization of African-American Heritage Societies is to provide Afrocentric,
research-oriented societies through which African-American undergraduate students
become aware of the significant contributions and accomplishments made by
black people throughout the world's history and to provide an arena in which
African-American students begin to recognize and utilize the legacy of the
prior contributions of African-Americans in their personal and professional
development. There is an obvious need among African-American youth to become
more fully aware of the historical development of black peoples throughout
history, and to have that body of information developed throughout Afrocentric
perspective. Considering the limited attention given to African-American culture
and history within present day integrated public school systems, it is highly
likely that African-American students have not had significant opportunities
to develop an appropriate knowledge of African-American culture and history,
nor are there adequate opportunities for recognition of and preservation of
an African presence for these students within institutions of higher learning.
Further,
today's African-American students in particular on predominately white college
campuses have demonstrated a need to develop a sense of belonging that is
not satisfied by mainstream student activities. While there is a need for
these students to participate in mainstream activities, at the same time there
is also a need to participate in activities which nurture the black student's
identity and culture. There is also a significant need among African-American
students, and this includes those at historically black institutions as well,
to develop a wholesome sense of belonging to one's own racial group and to
develop an appreciation of one's own racial identity. The opportunity for
such interactions in the context of mainstream activity within the Eurocentric
educational institutions is highly unlikely.
Additionally,
African-American college students need to experience the sense of gratification
derived from an investigation of their heritage and its application to relevant
issues in their lives. An additional gratification factor is that the application
of information learned may be translated to grade improvement through improved
research, practical skills development in a particular field, and a sense
of purpose which enhances a deeper desire to study and learn. African-American
students have a need to also develop a global perspective of the role of non-European
countries in history and in present day socio-economic and socio-political
affairs and to recognize the common relationships of black peoples in all
parts of the world.
Finally
there is a need to provide experiences for African-American college students
such that enable them to recognize the deeper and more complex role of an
educational experience offered at an institution of higher learning than simply
that of following a curriculum or developing career related skills. There
is a need for structured events that broaden the scope of regular course related
activities which research has shown to be a mechanism of motivation. The establishment
of an organization of African-American Heritage Societies embracing the areas
of science , history literature, oratory and the visual arts is proposed.
The African-American
Heritage Societies would be established at each campus for the purpose of
conducting on-going research, study activity and campus presentations. Participating
institutions would cooperatively plan an annual conference in which each group
would present some aspect of its investigations. Some specific objectives
for each group would be to develop a mentor type atmosphere while designing
and conducting projects, to improve student's GPAs and to expand graduate
opportunities.
An organizational
structure is needed on each campus so that a definite framework may be formed
to define the work to be done within each group. It is expected that each
group will operate autonomously, yet not independently of the umbrella organization's
focus. In addition, there needs to be a means of connecting the work done
at each institution through frequent communications and a yearly conference
for presentations. Each university would require a faculty organizer for the
overall coordination of the organization and at least one faculty or staff
advisor for each active society. In conjunction with faculty or staff participation
as advisors, discussion is needed to investigate some possible means of providing
supplemental remuneration.
The organization was established
through the efforts of Dr. Witherspoon and others at NCSU.
In 1989 I was surprised, proud and
humbled to receive a plaque which was read and presented to me by Gregory Washington,
which made it even more precious to me as he was a severe critic of mine earlier
for our not making as much progress as we should have. It read as follows:
Resolution
of Commendation in Recognition of Leadership and Professional Service
Whereas Dr. Nash N. Winstead
has served with excellence as Provost of North Carolina State University since
1974; and
Whereas in his position
as Provost Dr. Winstead provided dynamic leadership; and
Whereas Dr. Winstead has
strived diligently throughout his tenure to provide a climate within the University
that is considerate to work, study, and research among people of multiracial
and multicultural backgrounds; and
Whereas Dr. Winstead has
shown unbounded dedication in his resolve to improve the relation of African-American
students at NCSU and employment of African-American faculty and staff; and
Whereas Dr. Winstead has
ably endorsed and promoted opportunities for African-American students to
establish and maintain connection to their traditional heritage and culture,
particularly through his support of the African-American Heritage Societies;
and
Whereas 1990 will be his
retirement year; therefore
Be It Resolved
That the students, faculty,
and staff who participated in the educational excursion to West Africa, as
representatives for North Carolina State University in developing study abroad
programs in Africa, do hereby commend Provost Nash N. Winstead for his excellence
in leadership and for his commitment to service.
Resolved this 6th day of
April 21, 1989
African-American Heritage
Societies
Dr.
A. M. Witherspoon, Founder
Dr. Lawrence M. Clark,
Advisor
Dr. Iyailu Moses,
Executive Secretary
At the Brotherhood Dinner in 1991,
Chancellor Monteith said:
I am
proud that I can announce to you that NCSU has a new, operational African-American
Cultural Center. Programmatically, it strives to enlighten students, staff,
faculty and administrators of all ethnic and racial groups on the beautiful
heritage and history of African-Americans. Not only of their outstanding contributions
in America, but also their long history and culture before this nation was
founded. Students research various aspects of African and African-American
history and present their scholarly findings in local, state, regional, and
national seminars. Two of our African-American students, Mr. Thabiti Anyabwile
and Ms. Kristie Moore presented at the National meetings of the Society of
African-American Culture Centers, held at Ohio State University the number
one student paper on 'The Origin of the Concept of Afrocentric.' They found
the concept, if not the name, dated back before the Emancipation Proclamation.
It is this type effort that both enlightens all of us while at the same time
promoting scholarly work within our student body. We expect great things from
this experience on our campus. I hope that you will take the opportunity to
join us at the dedication this spring, 1992.
In September 18, 1992, the Board
of Trustees presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Dr. Witherspoon. The
citation reads as follows:
Whereas,
Dr. Augustus M. Witherspoon has been honored as an outstanding teacher, a
learned psychologist, and a leader in community service; and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
began his relationship with North Carolina State University as a graduate
student and was the second African-American to complete a Ph.D. at NCSU; and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
has served in various capacities, progressing through the ranks from instructor
to assistant professor of botany to associate professor and full professor;
and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
was appointed assistant dean of the graduate school, then acting dean, and
later as associate dean while maintaining his research and instructional responsibilities
within the Department of Botany; and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
is currently Associate Provost and Coordinator of African-American affairs
at North Carolina State University where he has spent 24 years of his career;
and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon's
life work has been dedicated to developing and establishing programs to guide
his students' progress and ensure their success, making him an adoptive father,
or "Papa" to many; and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
is a citizen extraordinaire who has served on many committees devoted to solving
vital issues within our community, including those related to the environment,
education, and the arts; and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
is recognized throughout the state and the nation as a warm, affectionate
leader who does not compromise principles, and has been a superior model to
everyone whose life he has touched; and
Whereas, Dr. Witherspoon
approaches every effort, whether in education or community service with a
tenaciousness that suggests that a mission must be accomplished if it is at
all worth the struggle; and
Whereas, the life of Dr.
Augustus M. Witherspoon is a noteworthy example of the dedication, strength,
and commitment to excellence of a scholar and a true gentleman:
Therefore, Be It Resolved,
that the Board of Trustees unanimously authorizes this citation of appreciation
as a tribute to the service of Dr. Augustus M. Witherspoon to North Carolina
State University.
In witness whereof and by
order of the Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University this eighteenth
day of September, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-two.
Some additional activities that
Dr. Clark was involved with that have not been mentioned in the preceding descriptions
occurred between 1982 and 1992. Those that involved outreach included: (1) Petitioning
the State Department of Public Instruction to make Algebra I mandatory for graduation
from high school. This move would help African-Americans and others since Algebra
I is the gateway in the college preparatory track; (2) Co-sponsored the African-American
Parents' Educational Summit with Wake Public Schools; (3) Helped to establish,
with the College of Physical Sciences, the Imhotep Program. In this program
middle school students come to the university on Saturday to work in the sciences
such as chemistry and physics. A similar program in the biological sciences
now exists too; (4) Established the Saturday Program for Academic and Cultural
Education (SPACE); (5) Established the Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Festival.
This program involves NCSU students, but it also brings many people in the community
to the NCSU campus.
There were several internal activities
which have not been mentioned that now exist on the NCSU campus. These include:
(1) The Black Repertory Theater; (2) The Minority Career Fair; The number of
African-American students with a 3.0 GPA or better has tripled; (4) We selected
the first African-American dean. Dr. James Anderson is Dean of Undergraduate
Studies.
In the fall of 1982 we had 1,398
black students or 7.4 % of our student body. In 1986 the number was 1,717 students
and 9.4 % of the student body. In 1988 the numbers were 2,380 and 9.3%, in 1990
the numbers were 2332 and 8.7%, in 1993, 2488 and 9.2%. Although the numbers
have grown somewhat the rate is slow and the percentage is slightly lower that
the peak of 9.4% in 1986.
In 1988 we had 537 African-American
freshmen, 524 sophomores, 417 juniors and 334 seniors. In 1990 we had 449 freshmen,
492 sophomores, 432 juniors and 395 seniors. In 1993 we had 482 freshmen, 491
sophomores, 491 juniors and 445 seniors.
This part of the story of the involvement
of the Provost's Office and the Provost's staff ends as of June 30, 1993. So
many of the problems discussed here continue to be only partially resolved.
Most of the things which we, the Deans of the Faculty, and the Provosts, attempted
are now in place and are continuing. The persons who now serve in the Provost's
areas of responsibility have the commitment to continue efforts to provide equal
opportunity for all and to insure that African-Americans make up a larger proportion
of those that NCSU serves. There will be new innovations, new ideas and new
programs that come into being. There will continue to be trials and successes
and failures. Until much larger proportions of African-Americans have the educational
levels and competencies needed to share in the American dream and have those
skills and the education needed to make contributions in proportion to their
population, our efforts will not be adequate. There is much to be done, but
NCSU will continue to try and to try even harder to make these goals become
a reality.
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