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The Voice
Minority Enrollment
By Trina Barnett
Campus
Renovations
By Carleton Bell
The Charles W. Chesnutt Library is
currently being renovated. The areas
underneath the library and an alcove
facing Murchison Rd. are being filled
in. This additional space will be used
predominately as stack space for
storing books which are now in boxes
and on the floor. There will also be
more work space. The periodical sec
tion will be expanded and the card
catalog will be relocated.
The construction is scheduled for
completion on Jan. 1, but Mr. Richard
Griffin, Library Director said that it
would probably be February before the
job is finished. Mr. Griffin estimated
the total cost of the work at $300,000.
There has been talk of building a
new library at FSU. When asked if the
current construction would act as a
stop-gap measure for getting a new
library, Mr. Griffin said he hoped it
would not. When the UNC legislature
meets in 1983 they should make a
decision on the new building.
Pleasant, Inc., a local construction
company, is responsible for the work.
Several weekends ago a theft took
place at the work site. A truck and
some tools were stolen. FSU Security is
conducting an investigation. As a
result of the theft a fence was erected
around the area.
The Taylor Science building is also
being renovated. Once completed the
building will facilitate offices and
classrooms. History, Political Science
and Sociology are among the courses
that will be taught once the building is
completed.
Harris, Joyner, and Smith halls are
being remodeled. This is
predominately repair work concerning
electrical and plumbing problems.
Claudia McNeil
Honored
The Fayetteville State University
Drama Guild sponsored a reception
honoring the world renown actress
Claudia McNeil on October 26. The
reception was held in the Little Theater
of the George L. Butler Learning Cen
ter on the FSU campus.
Ms. McNeil, the leading Black
female actress in America, is currently
in Fayetteville to play the leading role
in the Fort Bragg Playhouse Produc
tion of “Raisin In The Sun” of which
she was a part of the original Broad
way and movie cast.
Ever wonder what its like to be in the
minority at a Black institution? With a
minority population of 20 percent. The
Voice thought it would be interesting
to get some feedback from these
students and out first-hand what they
had to say about their experiences at
FSU.
Senior Bertie Wadfort is a
psychology major from St. Stephens,
S.C. Bertie decided on FSU as his
choice because of the athletic scholar
ship he was offered. Being one of the
few white players on the football team
and being the best punter in the CIAA
has made Bertie a popular young man
on the cannpus. There have been a few
times when racial slurs have been direc
ted at Wadford. One that stands out in
his mind is an incident that took place
in the TV room of the Student Center
during his freshman year. Bertie ex
plained, “I was in the TV room and a
guy told me that, ‘We don’t want any
white boys here’.” One of Bertie’s
teammates responded, “You may not
want him on the team, but I do.” Ber
tie made it clear that because of the
comradship that must exist between
members of a team, racial slurs by
fellow Broncos are few. When asked if
he felt that he was receiving just as
good an education at FSU as opposed
to a white institution, he replied, “I
feel that you can get a good education
anywhere, it’s really up to you.”
For sophomore Gregory Hickman, a
resident of Fayetteville, the location of
FSU, and financial reasons had strong
bearings on his decision to study here.
Although Gregory plans to transfer to
UNC next semester, he likes Fayet
teville State and he has not been sub
jected to any hostility because of his
race. “I like it” was the response from
Heide Wolfgang. Heide had been at
tending Methodist College but wasn’t
really happy with the school. On a
friend’s suggestion, she decided to try
FSU. Heide says that she has not been
confronted with any form of racism
and intends to graduate from here.
It took a while for FSU to grow on
freshman Deborah Estebon from Hilo,
Hawaii, but after a few weeks she
began to like it. Deborah had not plan
ned to attend FSU at all. Appalachian
State was her first choice, but because
of illness of a family member and her
receiving a minority grant, she recon
sidered. President of Alpha’s Ladies of
Black and Gold, and recently voted
Miss Alpha Phi Alpha, Deborah states
that she has experienced some
pressures from both blacks and whites.
“Many people feel that I shouldn’t be
President of the Ladies of Black and
Gold or Miss Alpha Phi Alpha because
I am Hawaiian and not Black.” She is
uncertain if she will continue her
education at FSU or if she will return
to Hawaii and finish school there.
Based on this reporter’s research, the
general attitude from these minority
students is a positive one. It is to be
hoped that this feeling is shared by
other minorities enrolled.
Integration Results-
Inferior Schools??
San Francisco, Calif. (I.P.) -
Disaster often follows in the wake of
experts, especially in America’s
schools. So says Thomas Sowell,
University of California at Los Angeles
professor of economics and senior
fellow at Stanford Hoover Institution.
An iconoclast, Sowell challenges the
widely held assumption that racial
segregation of students results in
inherently inferior schools, the basic
doctrine embodied in the U.S.
Supreme Court’s historic decision.
Brown vs. Board of Education.
Sowell has analyzed 70,000 IQ
records going back over four or five
decades for 12 different ethnic groups
and schools around the country. “The
top Black school, which was segregated
by law in the full legal sense, had an
average IQ of 104 over a period of
about 20 years,” Sowell notes in “The
Fairmont Papers,” a newly published
paperback on the Black alternative
conference he helped organize with the
Institute of Contemporary Studies in
December, 1980.
“The bottom had an average of
about 77. There are obviously many
cultural and social differences between
these schools. The point is, both of
them were all-Black schools, and both
were segregated.” In Public School 191
in Brooklyn, a very low income, high
crime area, 57 percent of the students
could read above the national average.
“No other school in the whole district
was as high as 40 percent,” he adds.
“They were all Black schools.”
Sowell also examined the test scores
of students in non-Black schools that
were socially segregated. He found that
children who attended schools where
95 percent or more were of the same
race or ethnicity “scored at least as
high as children from the same
background scattered throughout the
general society. There was no evidence
that separation made any sort of
achievement difference, much less that
it was inherently inferior.” This fin
ding held for Chinese, Puerto Rican,
American Indian, and Mexican
American students.
Students don’t always need role
models of the same race to advance
academically Sowell believes, nor must
their homes be saturated with
magazines. “Such prerequisites” for
educational success have been used by
experts as “an excuse for failure,” he
charges.
For those who believe state interven
tion is vital for schools, he notes that
three out of five free Black high school
graduates deemed functionally
illiterate. The basic assumption that
racial separateness alone makes
schools inferior was adopted by the
Supreme Court to help defuse
Southern reaction to the Brown
decision, Sowell contends.
As a result, “we no longer are
talking about eliminating barriers or
expanding the choices of Black studen
ts or their parents. We are talking
about mixing children according to
some recipes designed by third parties,
so called ‘experts’. Moreover, we have
developed no interest whatever in
preserving successful black schools or
in analyzing the causes of their success.
And this is tragic.”
Dunbar High School, which
produced a host of distinguished Black
leaders for 85 years, was destroyed by
racial intergration in two or three
years, Sowell delcares. Yet at the turn
of the century, Dunbar students
(Continued on page 6)
For more information contact:
Lt Colonel Charlie J. Coleman,
Fayetteville State University
Phone: 486-1464/1465
COLLEGE BOUND
VETERANS
If you’re a veteran of any branch of the Armed Services, you should look into
Air Force ROTC on your campus. Cash in on your previous service. Here are
some of the benefits:
• Active duty time may be credited for first two years of
Air Force ROTC.
• You’ll still receive all G1 Bill or Veteran’s Educational
Benefits you’re entitled to.
• You’ll attend summer field training with full pay.
• You’ll be commissioned upon graduation from college.
• You’ll return as an Air Force officer to active duty in a
P higher pay bracket.
You may also be eligible for an Air Force ROTC college schol
arship which pays full tuition, laboratory and incidental fees
and books, plus $100 a month during the school year. So
. . . while working for your degree, consider the advantages
of Air Force ROTC and an Air Force commission.
Jr.
ROTC
Gateway to a great way of life.