 | The Cavalier daily Tuesday, November 4, 1969 |  |
Colloquium
By Tom Collier
Black Recruitment
The Colloquium by Tom Collier
in yesterday's Dimension issue of
The Cavalier Daily was printed out
of order. Mr. Collier, a second year
student in the College, has served
on two Council committees, including
the Equal Opportunities
Committee. His comments are
drawn from his contact with
Council and his knowledge of
recruiting at other universities. A
corrected version of his article
appears below. The Cavalier Daily
regrets the error.
—ed.
Within the past few years the
Student Council has taken a firm
stand against racism. However, they
have taken this stand looking in the
wrong direction.
The Student Council has spent
entirely too much time concerning
itself with the racist image of the
university. Images deal entirely
with personalities; the only way to
change the racist image would be to
change the personalities for those
that make up that image. Our
Council seems to enjoy the stimulating
intellectual discussion that
topics like "Dixie" prompt. Instead
of wasting its time and resources on
isolated peripheral topics the Council
should be searching for a means
of educating and thereby changing
the opinions of most of the racist
students.
Essentially the problem does not
lie in the image of the university,
but unfortunately in the ineffectiveness
of the black recruitment
program. If there were more black
students at the university there
would undoubtedly be less of a
racist image. Our student body is
tired of seeing its student council
sitting in plush red chairs around a
mahogany table in a wall-to-wall
carpeted room wearing coats, ties
and beards, discussing nebulous
issues that attempt to deal with
racism. Black recruitment is a
concrete issue. It will not only give
council a chance to discuss the
ideas but to implement them.
Student Council has, of course,
been working in this direction. A
black woman has been hired in the
admissions office and two black
students have been hired to visit
various high schools in Virginia.
This, along with the transition
program, will help increase the
black enrollment, Council is making
progress in the right direction but
let's not feel that they are well on
their way to solving this problem.
They are not. The Council must
keep moving and it must keep
thinking so it can come up with
new ideas. Many of these ideas will
have to be discussed at meetings
but, to implement them, the
Council members will have to leave
the Honor Committee room and
work so that these new ideas can be
accomplished. That's what the
student body wants to see. It wants
to see its council discussing new
and imaginative ideas at its meetings.
Then the student body wants
to see Council locking the door to
that room and making those ideas
become realities before the next
meeting.
An opportunity to organize a
visitation program for students
from two local high schools presented
itself at the Council meeting
the other night. There was an
excellent possibility of recruiting
local black students. No Council
member was willing to take the
time to organize this program. It is
understandable that Council members
have extraordinary workloads,
however, the Council's avowed
purpose is nonetheless to chase
racism from this university. Council
spends many hours meeting, trying
to change a nebulous racist image
yet, when a concrete opportunity
to improve conditions arises no one
has the time for the work the
visitation program would consume.
| The Cavalier daily Tuesday, November 4, 1969 | |