Staten Island Advance Letters to the Editor
Opinions on local news, politics & more
April 26, 2010
Article wholly distorted the thrust of Wagner College symposium
By MICHAEL KELLY and ALONZO BRANDON Jr.
We are writing this letter in response to the April 11 article by Judy Randall about the Wagner College symposium, “A Year of Change.”
Having both participated in the organization of the event and having been at Wagner during this period gives us a unique perspective from which to look at this piece. We were both disturbed by the out-of-context quotes and omissions that appeared in Ms. Randall’s article.
The objective of the symposium was to recognize the actions taken by the students who sought to bring to the attention of the administration, their desire to make Wagner a more academically and socially inclusive environment for all. The program focused on two key events during the academic year 1969-1970: the election of the first black homecoming queen and the issuing of student demands that were presented to Wagner’s administration in the spring of ’70.
Ms. Randall chose to report on the symposium as an affirmative-action report card on the college rather then on the college’s efforts to welcome the former students back to campus and recognize their efforts for change, which represented 90 percent of the program.
The conclusion reached by Ms. Randall, in her discussion of the college’s progress, incorrectly states the facts. She says, “Yet when it comes to the numbers, little appears to have changed at Wagner.”
She offers as evidence the fact that the black student population has “only” gone from 3 percent to percent. While the numbers are correct, she doesn’t recognize the fact that moving to 5 percent is a 66.66-percent increase, almost twice what it was before. Had she done a little research, she would have found that Wagner compares favorably to other colleges they compete with both academically and athletically such as Bryant, Gettysburg, Duquesne, Monmouth, Bucknell, Fairfield, Lehigh, Marist, Moravian, Muhlenberg, Quinnipiac, and Siena. All have less then 5 percent black students.
Ms. Randall cites as true an incorrect statement made by a panelist about Wagner’s failure to hire black faculty, but never mentions that he was publicly corrected by another panelist, and current faculty and students who were in the audience. They named tenure-track and non-tenure-track black faculty who have taught there.
Ms. Randall quotes Dr. Sharon Richie-Melvan as having left Wagner “with a broken heart,” but never mentions that she immediately followed that by saying she was very encouraged by what she had seen over the previous 48 hours and was looking forward to becoming more engaged in the future. Not including her entire statement changes the meaning of what she said, but to whose advantage and for what purpose?
Having spoken with all of the former students who returned for this event, to a person they were delighted to have come. It is unfair to them, and to Wagner to allow your reporting of this event to go unchallenged and unchanged.
[Michael Kelly and Alonzo "Lonnie" Brandon Jr. were the organizers of the Cunard Occupation symposium held Saturday, April 10, 2010. Mr. Kelly, a member of the Wagner Class of 1966, received his master’s degree in 1972. He served as a Wagner College administrator in the 1970s, and has been a Wagner College trustee since 1995. Mr. Brandon is a member of the Wagner College Class of 1972 and was chairman of Black Concern from 1969 to 1971. He led the Cunard Hall occupation and was among the 25 students suspended for a semester for occupying a dean's office.]
Staten Island Advance Letters to the Editor
Opinions on local news, politics & more
April 26, 2010
Reporter’s narrow focus on the negative ignored Wagner symposium’s dignified theme
By MARYROSE BARRANCO MORRIS, SILVER LAKE
It’s regrettable that the Advance coverage of a remarkable event at Wagner College on Saturday (April 10) chose to focus on a single negative aspect rather than record the optimism that the occasion celebrated — a symposium to discuss a defining incident in the college’s history that occurred two generations ago.
In April 1970, 83 black students in the campus organization, Black Concern, occupied Wagner’s main administration building for nearly three days, and shortly after occupied the college dean’s office, an incident for which 25 of them were expelled. The expulsions were later commuted to suspensions by the College Council.
The April 10th weekend event was proposed by those students of 40 years ago and accepted by the college’s administration. Twelve of those who had been expelled and then suspended returned to the campus for the symposium, many of whom had pledged 40 years before never to return to Wagner.
Of all the issues discussed by a panel of distinguished leaders (all but one of them black, and all but one a Wagner alumnus) your reporter focused principally on one: Wagner’s inability today to recruit and sustain black professors in a tenure-track position, one of the black students’ demands in 1970. In fairness to your reporter, one of the panelists, Dr. Milfred Fierce, a Wagner grad from 1960, had initiated this point.
Yet, your reporter neglected to record a compelling reason affecting nearly all Wagner-sized liberal arts colleges in America: The demand for quality black professors at the nation’s Research I universities makes it virtually impossible for colleges like Wagner to compete for them, either in compensation, facilities, or reputation.
This explanation did not come from Wagner administration, but from another member of the symposium’s panel, Dr. Sharon Richie-Melvan. In fact, two Wagner faculty in the audience related stories of black colleagues “recruited away” from Wagner by major universities.
While your headline suggested that “not a lot has changed” at Wagner since black students put themselves on the line to change things, quite a bit has changed … for them.
Now, 40 years later, well established in their careers, they have gathered to recommit themselves to what they started as young men and women. They will participate in identifying potential students; they will look to their experiences to recruit talented professors; they will reconstitute a scholarship fund for minority students established more than 40 years ago.
I’m a Wagner alumna. I felt particularly proud having attended this symposium, proudest at experiencing the passion that these alumni displayed, and celebrated. There was so much more than a single complaint that the college was unable to recruit black professors.
There was so much more dignity expressed; I wish your reporter could have experienced that, too.
