A Need for "Principled Criticism"

Sandra: I totally disagree with Rudy.  Faculty at HBCUs have historically been excellent!  There are exceptions, but those generally occur because the people at the top are afraid to let people like he described go, for various reasons and faculty also tend to protect each other. Particularly black faculty, because they knew that many did not have adequate retirement plans and they were loyal to their former teachers, and many other reasons.  

But the administration should have had valid performance evaluations in place so that Rudy's experience could have been documented and hopefully would have led to a course of action supportive of both the student and the faculty member.  We have never thought about other roles senior faculty can play when they are no longer effective in the class room (but this would take leadership concerned with something other than their salary or building an empire).

However, HBCU presidents have been a disgrace.  When I return I would like to get together with Floyd and we should put something together a paper on HBCU presidents.

Jerry: Dear Miriam, I especially liked your remark about how whites delight in our castigating HBCUs.  Principled criticism of all institutions is necessary, because we must not yield our right to speaks out against repression.

Miriam: I like what Jerry says about "principled criticism."  You may be interested in the notes & his comments, re:  the reopening of Dillard.  Everyone seems hopeful

Kam: I agree with you both. I see organized religion as a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. As for blacks and Christianity, it's hard for me to see why anyone would embrace a religion which was force fed us as  rationale for slavery which the slavemaster has never believed in. In one generation, we've degenerated from civil rights to gangsta rap via the decapitation of black culture thru the elimination of black people of intellect and integrity from positions of power. Blacks occupy corporate jobs only so long as they kiss ass. Blacks who insist on respect and don't worry about being liked, don't last.

I have tried on several occasions to get positions which whites gave to ministers over me. why? for several reasons. 1- The ministers are more interested in being harmonious than effective, 2- they know nothing of the law, 3- whites know black people are dumb enough to prefer a minister to a lawyer in a legal position.

For instance, one job was as the head of Princeton's Human Rights Commission, a watchdog organization to handle complaints about employment, housing and school discrimination. A brother who was a lawyer had just been fired essentially for trying to do his job. He encouraged me to apply to replace him. But they hired a black minister from Trenton, not Princeton. In fact, he used to live and preach in Princeton but had to leave town because of sleeping with sisters in his congregation.

I could go on and on, but the America power structure wants no part of any black people like us who have no patience for nonsense.

Wilson: Rudy, I have never taught in a black institution, nor have I ever attended one, so I cannot offer much anecdotal evidence.  Early in my career,  however, while working on my Ph. D., I did meet Rayford Logan, and he was very stimulating to know. I also met Dorothy Porter, while working at Moorland-Spingarn, and I found her exceedingly gracious and supportive.  I met Otey M. Scruggs, while he was the only black man in the Syracuse history department, and he helped me with my dissertation immensely, although I was not his student. I took two sociology courses with black instructors at Wayne State. 

One was in a gigantic lecture course, which I attended only twice, and I still got a C.  The other was in a smaller course, where I made a minimal effort and was somewhat obnoxious, but Mary Queely nonetheless gave me a C.  The only black scholar with whom I had a formal connection at Brown University was Charles H. Nichols, who was on my dissertation committee.  He was a stabilizing influence, who raised many intelligent questions and treated me with fairness, objectivity, and kindness. 

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Where Are the Best Black Minds?

Rudy: I asked a friend would he agree that the best black minds are in white institutions. He agreed. That is not to say that there are not excellent and well-trained teachers in black schools. But, of course, black schools are not welcoming for the best black professors. They are an administrative nightmare. I understand that Skip Gates interviewed for a position at Howard University. Of course, he did not get the position.

I am not sure that black schools are the best place for black teachers, or students. First, the overall level of dissatisfaction is higher at black schools. Professors have more opportunities to become published scholars at white schools. My understanding is that black teachers at black colleges teach usually four or five courses with other duties and responsibilities. Can scholarship exist under certain conditions? Possibly, but the road is rockier. If you do not publish then you do not get promotion, which provides security and a higher salary.

I know of one particular case in which the tenured professor at a black school was up for promotion and that she was turned down because her books (excellent in their own right) were not published by a leading publisher, but by her husband. We must allow there are more opportunities for big-named publishers at white institutions.

At a CLA conference, several years ago, young black professors from small southern black schools argued that they were carrying the burden of the race while their black colleagues at white institutions received all the advantages. Of course, a few of the black professors at white institutions were offended. In another instance, I recall the temporary chair of the Education Dept at Morgan was frustrated because her public school teacher-doctoral  students made more money than she and she had a Ph.D. for some twenty years from a university like Brown or Cornell. I know another young black professor who taught at Coppin; he was pleased to leave there for LSU.

I do not mean to say that there are not dedicated and competent and ingenious persons at black colleges and universities. There are. My mentor and friend Dr. Max Wilson had a master's from Yale and a doctorate from the University of Berlin in Philosophy, specializing in philosophy of science. He spoke French, Spanish, German, some Italian and knew Latin and Greek. He came to Morgan as a full professor in 1967, a year before I left. He later in 1980 assumed Locke's chair at Howard University. He was the greatest teacher I ever had and, in some sense, he saved me.

Though such professors are rarer since the 70s, I suspect that there are others like him at black institutions, that are overall provincial and insular. Other than greater socialization with other blacks, I am very uncertain of the advantages of black schools or even black teachers and professors. It is all individual. Wilson encouraged me to go to UMCP.

The historian John Hope Franklin says that it was a white historian at Fisk that was responsible for his being able to go to Harvard. That this white professor took money out of his pocket to make sure that he reached Harvard. Franklin also pointed out two other interesting items in an interview: 1) he has taught more white students than black; 2) and that he learned from his students more than they know. This last point was startling. I wonder how many black professors at black colleges would express the same sentiment about their black students.

In any event the administrative overreaction to recent protests at Howard and Hampton, two premier private black schools, reminds me of the same attitudes that existed at Orangeburg State in South Carolina, where students were murdered by the cops because of the incompetence of black administrators to handle campus protest. If this war in Iraq continues, I suspect that student protests will escalate. What then?

Jerry: Dear Rudy, I am not certain on what scale one measures "the best black minds," but I can assure you that some of the most intelligent black women and men I know are not teaching at HWCUs.  Having vowed to teach at black colleges—although I have taught very briefly at the University of Virginia, Grinnell, and Wayne State and lectured at a number of white colleges, I do not berate my former students who have Ph.D.s for their decision to make their careers at schools that are well-endowed, equipped with up-to-date research materials in their specialties, and often more concerned with productive scholarship than with the quality of one's teaching. 

Until HBCUs as we know them vanish at some point in the late twenty-first century, it is necessary that some of us who have good minds, good preparation in our disciplines, and a sense of historic responsibility offer students at black colleges the challenge of high academic standards. Otherwise, they will not be prepared for the challenges of graduate studies or the demands of professional schools.  I do know from bitter experience that a number of non-black teachers at HBCUs do not teach well, and I do not bite my tongue when I inform some of them that they are doing a disservice to black students.

I agree with much that you have written about the pettiness that exists among many administrators at HBCUs, but I must disagree with a blanket condemnation of the black professors who chose not to teach at HWCUs.

Rudy: I agree no blanket condemnation should be made about the competence and dedication of black professors at black institutions. I knew too, from others, that you could have obtained a permanent position at a HWCU, but rather chose to remain at a black college in Mississippi and then in New Orleans. Knowing that fact endeared me to you. I admire you for your dedication and commitment to black life and culture. You are special. And I admire such sacrifices. My mentor Max Wilson chose the same path.

But for the life of me I do not know how anyone sustains the argument, today, that black students are best served at under-funded black state colleges and universities when there are "schools that are well-endowed, equipped with up-to-date research materials."  I thought that the one of the key racial problems that the NAACP and the civil rights movement was trying to resolve was the unequal treatment of black students and black teachers and professors, that the NAACP tried to obtain the best for all students and teachers. We know this is not happening at black state colleges where resources for teachers and students are at a premium..

Lance Jeffers' daughter who teaches at a small black southern college spoke at a CLA conference on the dilemma of black professors at black colleges: at black colleges quality teaching  does not rank very high when it comes to promotion; they still require scholarship and publications. Maybe it was/is different at Tougaloo and Dillard; if they have that kind of respect for black students and professors, they should be applauded for their good sense.

I do not quite understand the view that black students are not well-served at HWCUs, like UMCP. I beg to differ. I had Lewis Lawson for Southern literature, Donna Hamilton for Shakespeare, Eugene Hammond for writing, and others who were excellent at teaching as well as scholarship. They went out of their way to help me. But that was the English department. Library school at UMCP, I felt like a foreigner, worst than, when it came to some white teachers. But that situation probably had more to do with me being a black male, in a white feminized profession. But overall that was rare.

On the whole, I can think of at least three white professors in library school who were quite excellent in their teaching. One is responsible for helping me develop the skills for web publishing. UMCP had an excellent computer lab. ChickenBones would not have existed otherwise. Another directed me to the National Archives to research that filled in on Marcus Christian and materials sent to Sterling Brown when he was Director of Negro Affairs for the Federal Writers Program; all of which led me to the archives at Howard for research in an unprocessed collection, which allowed me to pulled together An Archival Search for Sterling Brown. I found my professor for Library Administration also quite excellent, though most of the black students in the class did not care for him. And that was because his lectures required considerable note taking.

UMCP's graduate library had an excellent collection of works about and by blacks that was not  available at any black college or university library in Maryland, including Morgan State, which still in 2005 has an inadequate library for undergraduates and graduate students. The administrators prefer hotels to well-equipped research facilities.

Maybe state-supported black colleges will vanish. I doubt it. Black administrators and other black politicians have a vested interest in maintaining segregated colleges and universities. Howard, Hampton, Spelman, Morehouse, Xavier, and such private black schools, I suspect they will be forever. As I understand it they are well-endowed and probably have a greater rationale for existence than the state black schools. 

Most black colleges are much like the segregated schools prior to the Brown decision, which stated that state segregated schools are inherently unequal, that is, inferior. That is still true in a society that undervalues black students at black institutions. If we are to become one America, this problem of separate state educational institutions need to be resolved, and resolved in favor of black students.

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Young Professor's Commitment to HBC

Brian: Rudy, I want to chime in on this particular subject because I’ve just accepted an Associate level position to teach at a Historically Black University starting in January. Let me first say that I’m a product of a historically black university in Charlotte, North Carolina, Johnson C. Smith University, and many of the criticisms that have been made about some black universities are sadly accurate. (In fact, when I was senior during the fall of 1994, I and my classmates leveled very serious critiques against the institution after having spent time at strong undergraduate research programs where our academic experiences were wanting in comparison with our peers who attended HWCUs.)

Also, please know that my decision to go to a black university was by no means driven by my inability to land a tenure-track appointment at a HWCU. In fact, it was very much the opposite. (In the final analysis, securing a tenure-track is not difficult but tenure is the issue, which I’m certain about my potential to secure at whatever institution I’m situated within.) Moreover, I suspect that many vocational decisions are made not simply according to the positions themselves but other very important areas that were once very much central to African American communal life: job, family, finances, church, community involvement, proximity to relations etc.

For all of these came to bear upon my decision to go to a HBCU quite profoundly. Yet, more to the point Jerry Ward makes, I’ve decided upon the institution I’m in-route to because I’m excited about what the institution is slowly but surely becoming. They’ve raised admissions standards. They’ve recruited quality and solid young professors with degrees from fine institutions and are interested in publication. They have been professional from A to Z in their handling of this transition.

Finally, the salary is competitive. Yet more to Jerry’s point, how do we measure “the best black minds” if it is indeed possible to do? Throughout my very brief academic career (having secured the Ph.D. in 2003 and having received the B.A in 1995 and M.A. in 1998) I’ve been a member of the Mellon-May Undergraduate and Postgraduate Research Program. And this program consistently touts those minorities that attend undergraduate Ivy-league institutions or upper-tier institutions like Duke, Chicago, and Berkeley who also go on to similar institutions for their doctoral training.

Yet, for all of this touting, many of these (my peers) have not produced strong scholarship and what research many of them are pursuing bears no organic relationship to the African American community in any substantive way. For the most part it is not historically-rooted and retreats to much of the senseless “theoretical babbling” that characterizes academia in large part at HWCU. (I’m think particularly of literary studies.) Look at the intellectual stalwarts of the African American scholarly tradition like Nathan Hare, Dolan Hubbard, Haki Madhudbuti who taught or teach at HBCUs although (to be sure) a great many like a Wilson Moses are at HWCUs.

Finally consider Du Bois, George Washington Carver, and Carter G. Woodson. Du Bois always desired to be at a HWCU and never received an invitation. Carver did not wish to leave Tuskegee but received many invitations from HWCUs to do so. Carter G. Woodson took great pride in being at Howard and repeatedly refused Du Bois’s entreaties to work together and/or pursue appointments at HWCUs. And for the most part (though we all recognize Du Bois’s great contributions to the African American community) Carver and Woodson contributed equally as much—if not more. Their research and scholarship was no “fluff,” spinning flat analyses from podiums throughout the nation. Their work was grounded in history and science. It was thorough and it was organically linked to the African American community.

And when I consider the many strong professors who have traversed through HBCUs, I identify myself with these. So who are the “best black minds”? Let me just say, let a man or woman be fruitful and let these fruits be inspected for their worth to wider academy and more particularly for the way in which it comes to bear upon the African American community. “For if a man plants himself indomitably upon his own instincts, eventually the whole world will come round to him” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

Tiger: Rudy, This discussion is what we ought to be doing!  This young man has made several cogent points to which I can identify.  Although he's much younger than my own children, they share very similar views.  I have my own experiences which I will share at some point in the future.  These views date back to 1958 when I was selected to participate in one of those post-sputnik math/science programs for distinguished high school students. 

However, my experience indicate that while the white schools had the equipment and resources, the teachers at the black schools were far ahead of their contemporaries in providing a quality education to their students.  Now, as I return to academia (six years ago), I find that the HBCUs are not the same HBCUs I knew during my collegiate years.  Therein lies the discussion, which must take place if we're ever going to compete in this global world.

Rudy: Tiger, you were in an African history class I took at Morgan. Maybe it was 1967 or early 1968, just before I dropped out to join the revolution. I do not know whether you recall an incident that occurred. The professor made a distinction between Stanley and Livingston. Stanley did not respect Africans; Livingston did. I had an objection to such simplicity. Thus I asked the question: If Livingston respected Africans and their culture, why did he try to Christianize them? 

The good professor snapped, said "Don't bring that Black Power junk in here."  He went on to declare his qualifications for making his argument: his study, his travels, articles written, etc. I was about 19 and I had never had a person, parent or teacher, to speak to me so harshly for asking a question, reasonable or otherwise. I was hurt. Not one of my classmates said a word. In that we were both campus militants and you an orator and both in the Society of African American Students, I expected you would come to my defense. Maybe you were more politik than I, though a militant. I said nothing to you about the incident until now, almost forty years later.

As I recall I dropped that class. This is only just once incident that soured me on the liberality of Morgan and "black colleges." There are numerous other such incidents all the way up to 1991. I still hate Thomas Cripps, who filled in for Benjamin Quarles. Cripps took us to UMCP, maybe this was the fall of 1967, before Stokely came to campus, to see Birth of a Nation.

I had never seen such garbage in my life and all Cripps could talk about was the technical mastery and inventions of the filmmaker. He had nothing to say of the racial mockery of the film. As a white professor, I expected this fellow would disassociate himself scholarly from such racism. Cripps later published and became an authority on blacks in film. I've  concluded that his scholarly accomplishment was won at the expense of the sensibilities of such black students as myself.   

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