Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

screen out those professors, white or black, who do not have the proper
orientation. I recognize that this suggestion further complicates problems
of the already acute shortage of black professors and might increase
the black brain drain from southern colleges, but we could still retain
the idea of the visiting professorshop for the non-headship positions in
these graduate training institutes and recruit black professors from
northern institutions for the headship positions .
Finally, in regard to the recruitment of black students, Professor Harding's
proposal of a consortium is a good one . However, certain qualifications
should be introduced . Considering the fact that tens of thousands
of black students in the North will be attending college as a result of the
accelerated recruitment campaign, the consortium model could not be
instituted across the board . If all black students were confronted with
this proposal and a substantial percentage decided to spend three of
their four years at a black institution, where could we conceivably find
the space to accommodate them? This question is very appropriately
applied to the massive recruitment efforts of some large state universities
that could enroll, say, 500 black students with little or no difficulty . It
might be wise, therefore, to restrict the consortium idea to small white
private schools and black colleges . For example, a school like Morehouse
College in cooperation with Amherst College, could accept 50
students who decide to spend three of their four years on the Morehouse
campus, but it would not have the space to accommodate the 700 black
students who were enrolled in the fall of 1969 at San Fernando Valley
State College in California . Moreover, recruitment programs organized
by state institutions are generally based on state funds, and their use
and distribution have certain built-in limitations ; northern private colleges,
on the other hand, could easily take their funds and finance a
student's three-year stay at a black institution. Furthermore, it would
appear that the most successful programs of this nature would be those
that involved southern schools with a black orientation and white schools
with Afro-American curricula . In short, the consortium idea, although
a good one, has limited application .
One last comment . There is some indication that black students at
a few white institutions are pressing for the establishment of separate
branches of their respective institutions in the black community . These
divisions, they argue, should be designed to meet the needs of the black
community and should be financed by their white institution and organized
and controlled by black students . It could very well be that the
next chapter in our tense struggle will be a move from the scholaroriented
black studies program on white campuses to a communityoriented
Black University. Accordingly, rather than undermining the
concept of the Black University, as Professor Harding suggests, it is
5g March 1970 NEGRO DIGEST