Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

We're No. 11 Richard J. Gar son '68
concentrates on a shot for the Big Red
tiddly-wink team that won the Eastern
title at MIT early in the term. The squad
qualified for the internationals in April.
—Via Wynroth
figures showing a thirty-point drop in the
median Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
math and verbal scores for this year's
group of forty-nine frosh compared to
last year's thirty-seven "disadvantaged"
students. In addition, this year's median
scores are 540 verbal and 570 math compared
to the 675 median for the entire
Class of 1970.
The figures gain meaning in the context
of the committee's statement that the
"disadvantaged" students "have performed
remarkably well—in some ways
better than the student body as a whole"
once they are in the university. With
such evidence, the committee concluded
that there exists "a very large reservoir
of Negro students capable of doing satisfactory
work at the most demanding
universities" who are excluded from college
simply because of lack of funds.
Indeed, financial support of the students
was and is an important part of the
special committee's work, making possible
a Cornell education for the ninetyfive.
Funding—$82,000 in 1965 and
$101,000 this year—has come from
a mixed bag of federal grants, scholarships,
student jobs, alumni gifts, and—
about half—from the President's special
fund.
But since such a financial potpurri is
not guaranteed every year the Rockefeller
Foundation last month granted
$250,000 to support thirty-five students
for four years.
Alumni support the program in two
ways, according to William Jones, assistant
director of admissions and a member
of the committee. "There have been some
alumni active on the development side,
in fund-raising activities", says Jones,
"while others interview applicants in
various cities." Jones said several alumni
will accompany prospective applicants to
the program when the students come to
campus for Cornell Day, the sub-frosh
weekend.
The work of the committee has necessarily
dealt with the practical aspects of
recruiting and supporting the "disadvantaged".
But lately the committee has
turned its attention to the more subtle
but vital problems faced by a predominantly
Negro group of students on a
predominantly white campus. These problems,
according to Miss Gloria Joseph,
an assistant dean of students who counsels
most of the students involved in the
project, are typical of the problems faced
by American society at large which is
also trying to "integrate."
Why this "new mood" and just what
is it? Basically, it's because "integration"
and "disadvantaged" mean different
things to Negroes and to whites. Because
of this, says Dean Joseph, true integration
has not been working. That is, the
Negro student and the white students
have not regarded each other as equals
chiefly because both Negroes and whites
have never appreciated the rich cultural
heritage of the Negro. The realization of
the dignity of being a Negro is the goal
of this "new mood."
Perhaps typical of the tone of the
"new mood" are the thoughts of Robert
Jackson, an 18-year-old freshman from
New York City. Says Jackson, "I didn't
expect Cornell to be different than the
rest of white society. I wasn't surprised
when someone in a car passing by me
on campus shouted out 'nigger.' You
sort of expect this type of thing in a
society which has always had institutionalized
racism.
"Yet I don't think Cornell is ready for
black people. It's not yet capable of
dealing with black people. It will be
ready when some white people change,
when white people become more civilized
and human, when white people 'get well',
as Bevel puts it." The Rev. James Bevel,
an aide to Martin Luther King, has visited
the campus several times this year.
It would be unfair to say one point
of view pervades the thinking of all the
students in the program. Jackson's
room-mate, 18-year-old Elvin Nichols,
says he has "felt welcome" at Cornell
and reports he's liked the people he's
met. In his view, Cornell is on the right
track.
"I think some people feel Cornell isn't
ready for Negro students because there
aren't enough black students here. But
there has got to be a start."
Education of both whites and Negroes
is the key to attaining respect for the
Negro, which may lead to true integration
of equals, according to Dean Joseph.
A lack of such education and understanding
has caused problems for the Negro
students in adjusting to Cornell and has
engendered problems for the white campus
in attempting integration.
Problems for the Negro students show
up in the "identity crisis"—a search for
a role as an individual—which becomes
doubly difficult for Negro students. Dean
Joseph explains why, in a special report
for the counselling program:
For the Negro student undergoing such
a crisis . . . there is a dilemma of respectability.
The Negro student must accept himself
as a Negro, and to date, the Negro has
been given little reason to feel respectability
in his being Negro. Despite outward appearances
of conformity in dress, manner,
and expression, most Negro students, on a
predominantly white campus, will suffer
feelings of rejection and inferiority.
Respectability, it is theorized, can be
gained by Negroes through "identification
with their race." The new mood is,
in effect, a new mode of adjusting. For
this reason, the university has cooperated
v/ith the Afro-American Society, a student
group to which many of the project's
members belong. The group,
which has been compared to a fraternity
by some observers, may soon acquire its
own headquarters off campus.
The problem of educating whites to
accept Negroes as dignified, equal individuals
is probably more difficult. A sincere
effort to try to begin this process
was made by some of the student leaders
of the Interfraternity Council this year.
For one, houses were told not to rush for
Negroes if they wanted to have a brother
with the same attitudes, culture, and
outlook as the whites in the houses.
Though it may have sounded shocking
at the time, the houses were told not to
expect to mold "white Negroes."
The IFC effort culminated in a weeklong
"Soul of Blackness" week which
brought prominent Negro writers, artists,
and political leaders to the campus.
Moreover, a display by a group of handicapped
Negro students from Harlem
attracted students and faculty.
In sum, one notes that the material
and practical aspects of aiding the "disadvantaged"
students are only preliminary
to solving the profound problems
all individuals, and especially Negro
students, face once they are at college.
Will the "disadvantaged" be accepted
as fully equal at Cornell as well as in
our country in general? Before answering,
we must first ask just who that "disadvantaged"
one really is.
42 Cornell Alumni News