Campus "EcHo
Non-Profit
Organization
PAID
Permit No. 374
Durham, N.C.
The official student newspaper of North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC 27707
Monday, November 23, 1982
CLEVELAND, OHIO Two children are be- emergency assistance for fuel, clothing and
ing passed overhead to their mothers to avoid bedding to offset federal cutbacks in aid to
crushed by the crowd outside of a welfare of- poor families. (UPI photo)
fice. Cleveland has appropiated $1 million in
Profs to vote on chancellor picks
By Edwin Horsley
The N.C. Central faculty will vote
to accept or reject the names of the
four finalists for chancellor at the
next Faculty Senate meeting.
The date for the meeting has not
been decided.
The vote is the result of a motion
by Dr. Rose E. Vaughn at the Oct. 8
meeting of the Faculty Senate.
Vaughn’s motion came at the end
of a meeting hightlighted by
criticism of the proceedures thus far
used by Central’s Chancellor Search
Committee.
Instructor Mae W. Freeman-Reid
complained that there has been a
lack of communication between the
senate representatives and the senate
body. According to Freeman-Reid,
the senate representatives made
decisions on behalf of the senate
without consulting the senate body
for input.
Responding to Freeman-Reid’s
complaint, Dr. Arthrell Sanders,
one of the Faculty Senate represen
tatives to the Chancellor Search
Committee, said the senate had had
an opportunity to make suggestions
to the Search Committee at a hear
ing last March.
But some senators apparently
were not satisfied with Sanders’s
response.
Dr. Woodrow Nichols said the
search committee’s work was com
pleted during the summer when the
Faculty Senate does not meet. That
fact, suggested Nichols, suggested
the senate had not been an active
participant in the chancellor selec
tion proceedings.
Senator Vinston Burton Jr. com
plained of restraints placed on the
senate representatives by the Search
Committe which prohibited discus
sion of Search Committee activities
with other senators.
Concurring, Senator Stephen
Fortune said that faculty and senate
members felt “slighted” after the
Carolina Times accurately reported
the names of the chancellor finalists
before those names were disclosed
to the senate body. Fortune asked,
“How could such information
which could not be revealed to the
senate because it was supposedly
confidential, be leaked to the press
for all of Durham to read?”
Senator Sandra Belforn also com
plained tiiat senators were noi able
to report the Search Committee’s
activities to faculty members in their
See CHANCELLOR PICK page 4
Thorne hears student
complaints on mail room
By Randy G. Vestal
Fiery denials highlighted an informal meeting between postal employees
of Shepard Station and students dissatisfied with the station’s mail service.
After the meeting, George T. Thorne, vice chancellor of Financial Af
fairs—under whose responsibility the mail room falls—said that from the
testimony of the students there is “no evidence that persons in the mail
room are opening mail and taking money out of the mail.”
However, Thorne did order Chester Ray, the supervisor of Shepard Sta
tion, to investigate two mail room employees charged with minor violations
of mail room regulations.
Responding to a letter written by Deborah Browner, a senior, complain
ing of her years of problems with the station’s mail service, Thorne ordered
the meeting to be held in a conference room of the Hoey Administration
Building for Thursday, Oct. 28.
The Browner letter is the first written complaint he has received regarding
Shepard Station, Thorne said. During the meeting. Browner exhibited
several crinkled envelopes of letters she had received through the station.
She had taken the envelopes to J. R. Moore, the manager of customer
services at the Durham Post Office, who confirmed that the envelopes ap
peared to have been steamed opened and resealed.
Moore reported the suspicious envelopes to the Postal Inspection Service
for investigation but he said that it is impossible to tell at what point during
the processing of the letter that the envelopes had been tampered with.
Several unidentified students also alleged that they had received letters
whose envelopes had been opened and money had been removed.
Ray and the two full-time postal clerks, Dominque Walker and Laura
Pierce, denied tampering with any mail.
Durham Postmaster Frank E. Copeland Jr. noted that all mail addressed
to NCCU goes through many different hands before reaching Shepard Sta
tion. The mail could have been tampered with anywhere along the route.
See MAILROOM, page 3
Proctor stresses
power of education
By Veronica M. Cogdell
I challenge you to get an education. Go out and make a difference.
You’ve got a mind and a mind is a terrible thing to waste,” said Dr. Samuel
DeWitt Proctor, professor of the graduate school of education at Rutgers
University, told students at N.C. Central University’s 35th Founder’s Day
Convocation in B.N. Duke Auditorium, Friday, Nov.5. Proctor’s theme
was the task of education for blacks, highlighted Central as a school which
has survived it all and is better now more than ever.
In stressing black people’s hunger for education, Proctor, also holder of
the Martin Luther King Memorial Chair at Rutgers, said,“Blacks have
never enjoyed being semi-illiterate or poorly trained.”
Proctor outlined the hazardous quest of black educators, using the exam
ple of Alex Hayes who in 1850 attempted to build a school in
W-nhington.D.C. Vvivch was inimediately burned to the ground,
bee DR. PROCTOR SRESSES on page 4
Scagnelli case
Judge orders retrial
Compiled from reports by The
Durham Morning Herald and the
Associated Press
A federal judge ordered a new
trial Tuesday, in the Paul Scagnelli
tenure case, despite a jury verdict
that awarded the former NCCU
psychology professor $500,000.
Saying the jury’s verdict
“shocked the conscience of the
court,” U.S. District Court Judge
Hiram Ward ordered a new trial.
No date has been set for the second
trial.
Scagnelli said, “As a matter of
principle I don’t think any citizen
should have to tolerate this kind of
treatment. How many times do I
have to win it.”
Ward told the jury to deal with
five major issues: (1) whether
NCCU denied Scagnelli tenure in
retaliation for his handling of a
plagiarism incident, (2) whether
Scagnelli’s conduct had disrupted
discipline at the university, (3)
whether NCCU administrators had
unknowingly acted unlawfully, (4)
whether Scagnelli was entitled to
compensatory damages, and (5)
whether he was entitled to punitive
damaps.
The jury found in favor of
Scagnelli in all five issues.
' *itte verdict called for $200,000 in
punitive damages to Scagnelli to be
paid equally by Chancellor Albert
N. Whiting; Cecil L. Patterson, vice
chancellor of academic affairs;
Joseph A. Pittman, dean of the
graduate school; and Leslie Brin
son, chairman of the psychology
department. Another $300,000 was
awarded as compensatory damages.
Scagnelli, now a practicing
clinical psychologist in Durham,
alleged that he was denied tenure in
1979 because he failed a graduate
student for plagiarism against the
advice of his superiors. Tenure pro
tects professors from being dismiss
ed except for cause.
Earlier in the trial, Edward Speas,
an assistant state attorney general
defending NCCU, argued that
tenure was denied on grounds other
than the plagiarism case.
Speas said that as early as
November 1978, Brinson had ex
pressed to Patterson his doubts
about recommending Scagnelli for
tenure, and that in February 1979,
Pittman said he would not support
tenure for Scagnelli.
The defense also argued that in
March 1979, Patterson told Brinson
he saw no problem in reversing the
decision to give Scagnelli tenure,
and on April 5, 1979, Brinson wrote
a letter to to another faculty
member saying that he would
recommend against tenure for
Scagnelli.
Brinson told Scagnelli at a lun
cheon meeting early in April that he
would not recommend him for
tenure, Speas added. The plagiarism
case did not come up until May.
On the other side, Scagnelli’s
See CASE, page 3
Prof awarded one
penny in libel suit
By Randy G. Vestal
Dr. Vernon Clark, associate professor of biology, was awarded one pen
ny in his libel suit against a student for writing a libelous letter about him
and sending copies of it to several university administrators.
A jury in Durham County Superior Court ruled on Thursday, Nov. 4,
that Clark had been libeled in a letter written by Dan Otis Davis, 23, of
Washington, D.C. The jury also ruled that Davis had not acted in good
faith in writing the letter.
But, on the question of what damages Clark was entitled, the jury wrote;
“.01”—a penny.
Clark filed the suit in November 1980, claiming that Davis had raised
false charges against him in a letter sent to three NCCU officials—Dr. John
Ruffin, chairman of the department of biology. Dr. Walter H. Patillo, dean
of the undergraduate school, and Dr. James F. Blue, former vice chancellor
for student affairs.
In the letter, Davis complained that Clark had humiliated him at an April
21, 1980, meeting of the Pre-Professional Health Society, a student
organization. At the time, Davis was a candidate for president of the club.
Davis claimed that Clark came to the meeting and spoke against his elec
tion, making references to his grade point average and saying he would be
used by other faculty members who wanted to control the club.
Davis asked the university administrators to investigate the incident and ■
possibly remove Clark as sponsor of the health society.
The letter caused him “immense personal and professional embarrass
ment” and hurt his career, said Clark in the suit. He offered affidavits from
other students at the club meeting to show he never said the things Davis
claimed.
Clark asked for $25,000 plus an unspecified amount of punitive damages.
Davis said in answer to the suit that his statements in the letter were true,
that they were part of an administrative procedure, and that he had an ab
solute privilege to write them.
Earlier this year, Clark filed an unrelated suit against Chancellor Albert
N. Whiting and other university administrators for allegedly denying Clark
a promotion which he felt he deserved. During the summer, the case was
dismissed.
Angelou discusses the plight
of women writers in lecture
By LaTanya A. Isley
Amid applause, standing ovations
and cheers, Maya Angelou sang,
danced, laughed, recited poetry and
read from her works in her second
appearance on N.C. Central Univer
sity’s campus Thursday, Nov. 11.
Speaking on “Women Writers in
the Harlem Renaissance,” Ms.
Angelou stirred members of the au
dience as she told them about the
trials and tribulations of black
women writers and the efforts that
have been made to keep them
almost non-existant to the public
during a period that was considered
by some as an era of emergence for
black poets, writers and artists.
“One of the reasons people don’t
know about the women poets is
because of the hostility, jealousy,
struggle and strife among writers of
that period,” she said. “Male poets
and writers were active and effective
in developing that schism.”
Ms. Angelou listed Georgia
Douglas Johnson, Anne Spencer,
Jessie Faucette, Zora Neale Hurston
and Angelina Grimcade as some of
the black women poets who were
“essential to the growth and pro
ductivity of women in the 20th cen
tury.”
Using Anrie Spencer, whom she
described as “one of the finest
writers in English,” as an example
of one whose literary talents were
buried beneath the glory of the men
of that period, Ms. Angelou said,
“A number of people teach and a
number of people study American
poetry, yet know nothing about
her.”
Ms. Angelou used her poem
“And Still I Rise” to lay the
groundwork for her discussion of
the struggle that blacks have been
going through since they were first
brought to the United States as in
dentured servants in 1619. She talk
ed about the years of the slogan
“Black Is Beautiful” and how it
related to the need to survive the
odds and continue the struggle.
“To survive with some dignity is a
success. When black people went
around saying ‘Black is Beautiful,’
they encouraged black people to
survive, thrive with passion, com
passion, humor and style,” she said.
See ANGELOU, page 5
Authoress Maya Angelou (third left) discusses her lecture on
“Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance” with NCCU’s
English Department Chairman Dr. Patsy B. Perry (left) and
students LaTanya Isley (second left) and Dumont Stockton
(right) after her appearance in B.N. Duke Auditorium.