In Black America; Black Studies Programs and the Role of Black Faculty Member

💭 I'm John Hanson. Join me this week on in Black America. We focus on the role of the Black faculty member and Black Studies programs. Our Black scholars are conservative Black scholars, obviously, I know I'm coming out of the woodwork under the Reagan administration and proposing that race is no longer significant. Black Studies programs and the role of the Black faculty member this week on in Black America. This is in Black America. Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society.

The problem of being a Black faculty member on a predominant rate campus means you've got to play two different roles. One is you've got to be an expert at the discipline. You've got to be as good at your discipline as anybody else in your department is. You've got to get the same kind of national or international recognition as they get. But in addition to that, you've got to be an expert on Blackness. You've got to be a counselor to Black students. You're going to serve on faculty committees trying to represent that minority point of view. Now that second role is very important. It's a critical role and it's one I've tried to play here in Texas, but it surely gets in your way as you try to do all the other things you're being asked to do. Dr. Rubin McDaniel, professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin. The tomorrow of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the public commitment of government to active reform of past inequalities brought Black faculty members and larger numbers than ever before to white colleges and universities. In the early 60s, Black faculty members were

not just instructors. They felt they were obligated to rush to any emergency, academic or not involving Black students. I'm John Hanson and this week our focus is on Black Studies programs and the role of the Black faculty member in Black America. And I think it's very difficult for the typical college administrative to understand the kind of time and pressure playing the role of being Black at the institution really puts on a person. I've been very fortunate in that my dean has been very supportive in terms of the kinds of things I've tried to do, but I know lots of folks where that just has been the case where people haven't been willing to sit down and say, well, what are you doing and how are you going about the business of doing it?

When Black faculty members arrived on predominantly white college campuses in the early 60s, some felt an obligation to attend the matters that affected Black students. If only from a point of view of self-preservation. The aware Black scholar realized that his or her continued presence on the campus was affected by many concerns. School of Mission Policies towards minorities, the counseling and advising provisions for the retention and graduation of Black students, the institution's commitment towards the Black community and its needs, and the orientation of academic offerings towards Black culture, history and identity. I first spoke with Dr. Rupert McDaniel, professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin, regarding the role of the Black faculty member on a predominantly white university campus. I think that for a short period of time there was a kind of a false camaraderie between the Black faculty member and the Black student, and I'm guilty. I take part of that responsibility. Kind of the assumption that just because we were Black that meant that we shared everything

in common, I think what is being recognized now is that a Black student 18 doesn't have a whole lot in common with a Black professor 46 in terms of day-to-day interest and this kind of thing. And there's a more mature and a more healthy relationship between the Black faculty member and the Black student than they was say 15 years ago. I remember when I first went to Baldwin Wallace College, a Black student who would come office and sit down and kind of say, well here I am and I wonder why are you here? I knew they were here because I was the first Black faculty member on the campus and they were looking for someone to identify with and this kind of thing. Now I find that when Black students come in, they come in with a purpose. They come in with something they want to get and understand in the note. It makes the relationship, I think, a more mature one, one where more is to be gained on both sides. On the other hand, it's a strain too, you know, because a lot of Black students feel that because you're a Black faculty member, you should be interested in all the Black issues on campus. And I just can't be interested in all the issues on

the campus. In the early 60s and 70s, there was a lot of campus unrest. Students wanted more Black studies programs. They wanted to see more Black faculty members on campus. You being here at the University of Texas for 10 years, what type of attitude did the administration hear in other predominantly white institutions have about Black professors and Black studies programs? I think, you know, back at the time of the student unrest, all colleges, universities, you know, tried to kind of get on the bandwagon. They saw it as kind of a political response to a political action. Black studies programs, Afro-American studies programs, and this kind of thing. Of course, since that time, things have cooled down a lot politically. The political climate has really changed. So the political response of a Black studies program, an Afro-American studies program, has to now become some kind of an academic response. And that transition has really been difficult.

Has it been difficult being a Black faculty member? Well, yeah, there's some real difficulty. Let's just talk about that from two different points of view. The problem of being a Black faculty member on a predominantly white campus means you got to play two different roles. One is you've got to be an expert at your discipline. You've got to be as good at your discipline as anybody else in your department is. You've got to get the same kind of national or international recognition that they get. But in addition to that, you've got to be an expert on blackness. You've got to be a counselor to black students. You're going to serve on faculty committees trying to represent that minority point of view. Now, that second role is very important. It's a critical role. It's one I've tried to play here at Texas, but it surely gets in your way as you try to do all the other things you're being asked to do. And I think it's very difficult for the typical college administrator to understand the kind of time and pressure playing the role of being Black at the institution really puts on a person.

I've been very fortunate in that my dean has been very supportive in terms of the kinds of things I've tried to do. But I know lots of folks where that just hasn't been the case where people haven't been willing to sit down and say, well, what are you doing and how are you going about the business of doing it? Can be real time consuming and real tough on you? I've been wondering for some time now, when white institutions made an effort to seek Black professionals, professors, and instructors, were the instructors already there and what area of education were they teaching in if at all teaching? Well, the answer to that question is no, the instructors were not there. The number of Black PhDs in the country in the early 1960s was very, very low. And most of the Black PhDs at that time were either in schools of education or at best in the social sciences. There were very few in business, for example, my discipline, very few in physics, chemistry,

very few, if any in places like architecture. So in some institutions, and they're rushed to get Black faculty members and in the desire to respond politically, put people in untenable positions, had them teaching courses, they weren't really qualified to teach, had them doing things that they hadn't trained themselves to do. And I think it's been admirable the number of Black faculty across the country that have been able to make these adjustments and to make significant contributions. But it does put folks in a bind. One of the things that happened to some people even here in Texas was they came in associated with the Afro-American Studies Program. They came in associated with the Black Studies Program. In those things, they've cooled down. Students are not as interested. Times are hard. Mr. Reagan is saying pretty clearly that he's not caring too much about what happens politically to Black folk. So professors and students who are caught up in those webs can really get

trapped and get into real bad situations. Do you find yourself being a Black professor at a major institution? Somewhat alienated? No. At least not being a Black professor at a predominant white institution. What I find is in terms of alienation is trying to almost once they try to be a Black intellectual period is alienating. Just trying to confront the realities of the intellectual world. I don't find myself particularly alienated here in my department or here in the college. One of the things that's real true of university professors is that your camaraderie comes around your discipline. And I'm real lucky. I'm in a discipline where there are lots of people here in the college and the discipline and they seem to think I know something about

it. So we talk and I've got good doctoral students and things like this. But the thing that I find alienating is that as I move around the total community, people don't want to accept the fact that maybe I am in fact a full professor at the University of Texas on my own merits. They want to ascribe some political reality to it. They want to say, well, you must not really have gotten that grant because you knew what you were doing. You must have gotten it because the agency was trying to find some Black professor to give them a grant. And those are the kinds of things I find kind of alienated. Did you find the white professors that you, a lady to earlier, Black professors coming in not having particular expertise in their particular discipline? Will the white professors somewhat ensign? Okay, I think let me just make one point clear. I don't mean to imply that I thought Black faculty members were unprepared. I think they were asked to do something

unusual. After all, you know, you've got a situation where in 1960, there's not one Black or there's certainly a no significant number of Afro-American studies programs. Five, six years later, you've got 500 of them. And we just can't believe that in five or six years, 500 people just came out of the ground. The Black professors were the business of trying to understand the discipline, develop it, do what needed to be done. Now, I think a lot of White professors did resent that because they felt as though they had to come into established disciplines and established competitive roles. And they felt rightly wrongly that some of the Black professors in the Afro-American studies programs didn't have to do that. Now, I wouldn't agree with them. I think that coming into an Afro-American studies program and trying to start a discipline is a lot more difficult than getting into established one. But I think there was resentment by some of the white faculty members. Is the role of the Black faculty member changed over the years since you've been teaching?

Oh, yes. Oh, my Lord, has it ever changed? Well, let's say right now, at this point in time, if you're going to be a faculty member at a major research institution, whether you're Black or White, you've got to cut it in terms of the academic, or traditional academic criteria. Now, I'm not trying to defend those. All I'm saying is that's just the way it is right now. Ten years ago or 15 years ago, there was a more political atmosphere on campus. I think there was more feeling of, let's try to open up the doors of academia to more people. Let's try to involve a wider spectrum of the community in higher education. So there was a greater variety of opportunity. 15 years ago, the system was expanding. Everybody was growing. There were lots more students coming in every year, lots more faculty. Now,

while at the University of Texas, we're growing, and most of the country, higher education is shrinking. And there's a world of difference in coming into some place that's growing with lots of opportunities, or coming into some place that's shrinking without many opportunities. Is it difficult for Black faculty members to gain tenure? Well, it's difficult for anybody to gain tenure. I think that there's two sides to that coin. From an academic point of view, I think the answer is no. From what I have been able to ascertain and what I've been able to see, that is to the extent that the faculty member has done the traditional academic things that are expected of the traditional faculty member, then it's no harder or easier for Black faculty member to get tenure. The issue comes because most Black faculty are interested in things beyond the traditional. They're interested in doing things that are different than the

traditional kind of research. Let me give you a kind of example of what I'm talking about. Some of the research that I have done has been very, very racial in turn. I have looked, for example, at the impact of the Black political movement on business decision-making. Now, that's not an area that many of my colleagues understand or know why we want to approach or even recognize the kinds of research methods that I used. So it requires some effort on my part to try to communicate to people what that means. I've done research on the impact of the Texas State Governor's Effectiveness and Efficiency Program on Black Texans. Again, I've had to translate that for my white colleagues in terms of a general academic kind of thing. So to the extent that a Black faculty member is involved in the traditional, mainline academic efforts, I don't think it's any harder or easier. But once you begin to become involved

in some of those things that would naturally be of interest to a Black intellectual, but might not be of interest to your colleagues, then it really requires an effort to translate that work so they can understand it. I feel some real responsibility to do that translation. I don't think you can just walk around saying, well, they ought to understand or they ought to believe me. Folks don't believe anybody about much of anything. I think you really have to make that extra special effort to make sure your colleagues understand the nature of your work. And I think you've also got to be prepared to accept criticism from your white colleagues. Just because they're white doesn't mean that they can't criticize. They may not understand, but it doesn't mean they can't criticize. And I think you've got to be prepared to accept that and to deal with it. In thinking along some of you just mentioned about being able to accept criticism, do you find that you have to somewhat analyze with your white co-workers? Does he not understand on is this a point of racism that he's trying to convey to me?

Oh, yeah. I've always got to deal with that issue. Now, I think everybody has their own style. I tend to try to deal with that issue by saying this is a point of honest difference rather than that it's racial. Then if I find that the person seems to just be kind of blindsided, can't see another point of view, then I might begin to say, that's a racist problem. But in general, if you're arguing with me from a racist position, and I'm arguing with you from an intellectual position, I'm going to win on the college campus because eventually you get all tangled up in your emotions. I think the way that you really get in trouble is if I start trying to attack you as a racist, so that both of us are now on an emotional level, then it's up for grabs who's going to win. The nice thing I buy at a college campus or university campus is that although there's a tremendous amount of racism, as there is a lot of different places, and although your work is really subject

to pretty severe peer pressure and peer review and peer criticism, that if you can keep the argument on a pretty intellectual plane, then you're going to come out of it most of the time. Even some of those persons who were really black activists and were very much involved deeply in the black political movement, and they may have been harassed and a number of different things on white college campuses. If they were doing an honest academic job eventually, they just had to win. They had to come out ahead of the game, and I think that's kind of been my experience at it. Dr. Rubin McDaniel, professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin. Welcome back to In Black America. There's been over 10 years since black Americans and black students demanded that colleges and universities

provide black studies programs. Today, these programs are in great danger, not only from the colleges and universities themselves, but also black students. The black community, like other cultural, ethnic, and religious groups, needs its own educational anchor in this country. If our colleges and universities are to help maintain the culture, psychological and economic strength of our community, and our contributions to the greater society. Black study programs are the only major center of intellectual and professional dialogue for black Americans. Today, black study programs are in great danger, in part due to the lack of interest from the black student and college administrators. I spoke with Dr. John Warfield, director of the African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Well, John, the outset, as you may recall, that was the time in this country when the civil rights movement was a foot. It was born, that is to say black

studies was born in a crucible of crises in this country around the human rights that black people were seeking during that period of time. One of the aspects of that quest was to legitimatize academic and scientific study into the history and practical affairs of black people. Again, much of the thrust for that movement came from students and enlightened faculty members all around the country. So the need was really one of rehabilitation, the need to restore the historical and cultural realities of black people in the academic arena as one aspect. But it was self-knowledge. It was, as I said, what John Henry Clark calls the restoration project to bring black history and culture to a relevant place in the lives of black people in ultimately, hopefully America.

Was there somewhat of a resentment from college and university history departments for a special emphasis being put on black history? Yeah, I think that the traditional academic department, in most cases, took some resistance, took some issue, if you will, with the question of establishing black studies departments and somehow providing this preferential treatment as it was referred to. It obviously is not that. It's not preferential. If anything, it's an inadequate effort even to this time. The problem is obviously that the majority, those in control, do not want to see the study of what is essentially an oppressed minority, begin to take place, certainly not to take place in the hands of those minorities themselves. In other words, black faculty and scholars and researchers, beginning to look into their own lives, begin to look into their own oppressed condition. That has been, and to my knowledge

in the main remains, the purview of white scholars. So that resistance was argued against fallaciously, I think, that it was preferential, that it represented reverse racism and so forth. That was not the case. Black people and the heritage of black people has not had the proper focus, the proper scientific investigation, and it's been badly needed, but that resistance was there. To such an extent that I think we've lost a number of the black studies programs around the country over time as the so-called militancy behind those programs and the urgency for those programs on the one hand possibly is weighing the bit in the black community, and at the same time so-called increased budgetary restraint and so forth has meant the elimination of some programs. But you're absolutely right. A good deal of resistance at the point

where you get into the politics of knowledge, who controls what is produced and spoken in classrooms and so forth and so on. That resistance is still there. It is tough to bring the importance, for an example, of slavery. I mean, it may seem simple at some point, but the importance of slavery to the economic and social development of this country has never been talked about yet in the way that it should be. You had to be a very good therapist at some times, but certainly an organizer and one capable of managing, if you will, and many black directors of programs and chairpersons were most taxed by that. You had to be kind of all things to all people. You had to relate to your community, particularly those of us who were sensitive to the fact that this academic development did not grow out of its own strength, that there were thousands of black people who somehow made it possible.

We felt the need to relate to the everyday community struggles of black people. We felt obviously then the desire to involve students on our campus and the curriculum development. There was more achieved black faculty people and so forth. In many of my case, the tough mix, despite the common racial and to some degree cultural similarities, it was a tough job and many, many I think faculty members burned out or as Don Davis talks about a kind of exhaustion that comes from being involved in academic and social struggle. But you're tied. You had to be a manager and you had to be a tight rope walker at some point to make sure that the many facets of the black community to say nothing of your relationship with the broader and wider white institution had to be dealt with. Were other ethnic groups interested in black studies programs? I'm not so sure how much. I think there were varying degrees of interest. I think there were certainly well-meaning and enlightened whites who were interested in seeing the achievement

of a legitimate institutional study or study from within the institution of black people. I think that was true. I think some, again, more enlightened oppressed minority groups saw the establishment of black studies as obviously the precedent that could be used to legitimize Mexican-American studies and so forth. Not that it was a co-tail effort, but certainly the eye of the storm to develop black academic studies was with black people. And at that point, others came into it, if you will, subsequent to that. Has the change for black studies programs over the years changed as far as the administration added to a black studies program and also black students added to a black studies program? I don't think as I look at, say, the last five, six years, maybe even ten years, that there's been, I think, again, this experience is varied and so forth, but I suspect that

the administrations, in some cases, have tolerated, if you will, at best. Black studies departments and programs, few departments, many programs, if you will, not many, on a collegial status with the department. I think it's been a toleration on the one hand. On the other hand, I think there have been out and out right administrative attacks on the structure, on the faculty members, on personalities and so forth as an attempt to undo what it's been established. But in the main, there's probably a kind of fraternalism of a friend of mine at a small liberal arts college in Minnesota talks about a kind of mutual exploitation. They kind of need black faces around for whatever legitimacy comes with that. And to some degree, there are those of us who need the platform, if you will, to try and express whatever black history and affairs have been about. So in most cases

without calling on the research of Nick Aaron Ford and others, pretty much for my way of thinking a kind of paternalism, if you will, exists at this point in terms of black studies. What about the black student? The black student has gone the way probably of most white students. We have not managed what anthropologists would refer to as an intergenerational continuance. That is to say, whatever happened in the 60s, too many young black people are not aware of. They are, as I think Larone Bennett described, most vulnerable. That under 30 crowd does not understand the subtleties and the more softer aspects of racism at the same time, the real pointed aspects of it as well. There is just a vulnerability on the part of that group that says at some point, to study black

people is not really relevant. I want to get ahead in America. And they bought the basic American dream, lost stock and barrel. And when in fact, the basic kinds of aspects of economic racism and so forth have not really done much more than changed form as opposed to the elimination. So I'm very distressed with young black people, very, very distressed. And at the same time, very concerned about the ultimate welfare, whether this is a generation you quote right off or what happens, because at some point it's a pretty commercialized and bland generation of black students that I see. Dr. John Warfield, director of the African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. If you have a comment or would like to purchase a cassette copy of this program, write us. The address is in black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 787, 12. For in black America's technical producer

Walter Morgan, I'm John Hanson. Join us next week. We've been listening to In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. In Black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.