.M-
INSIDE:.
“Director’s
Choice” at he
NCCU Museum
of Art.
ARTS
& ENTERTAIN
MENT
page 6
North Carolina Central University
Durham, NC 27707
Issue No. 83
Thursday, April 1,1999
ALSO INSIDE:
It’s not always
easy being
Warren Bell,
you know.
FEATURES
page 5
WNCU SUPPORTERS REACT TO NEGATIVE PUBLICITY
ChanceUor asks:
Who’s running
the show?
Baker
by DANNY HOOLEY
The Campus Echo
Almost 50 listeners, volunteers
and radio staff assembled in North
Carolina Central University’s Miller-
Morgan Health
Sciences
Building to
praise the
school’s jazz
station, WNCU,
in the wake of
an consultant’s
unfavorable
report submitted
to the chancellor
and the News
and Observer article that followed.
The report, completed by Ernest
Fears and Associates of Maryland
after observing the station for three
days last December, criticized
WNCU for playing “a disjointed
hodgepodge of music,” and recom
mended that its general manager,
donald Baker, and its program and
operations director, Jerry Carter, be
replaced.
The report said that Baker was not
a “radio person,” and that he “does
not have the requisite people skills
for the position.”
The report further claimed that
Carter does not understand the rat
ings book, and programs the station
arbitrarily. Furthermore, the report
said, he lacks the “motivational per
sonality” needed to run the day-to-
day operations of WNCU.
Summing up station management
in general, the report said: “The sta
tion is in shambles; it is in a chaotic
state and appears to be a memo fac-
toiy.”
As the floor vvas opened to the
audience at the Miller-Morgan forum
after a speech by Baker, in which he
outlined ways in which he thought
the station had stuck to and surpassed
its original mission, past N.C. Jazz
Network President Peter Ingram may
have summed up the reaction of
many supporters when he said:
“WNCU does not put on a disjointed
hodgepodge of music. This kind of
publicity is reprehensible.” His com
ments drew a round of applause.
According to Chancellor Julius
Chambers, the Fears report was
prompted by
three things.
First,
Student
Government
Association
President
Derrick Jordan
attended a board
of trustees in
which students
voiced their
frustrations over
lack of student participation in pro
gramming the radio station. Jordan
took up their cause and presented a
letter to trustees the following day.
Second, there was the issue of the
station’s responsibility to teach, an
issue specifically addressed in its
original mission statement.
“We were going to work with the
English department and develop
some courses on how to operate a
radio station,” Chambers said of the
time in 1995 when the station was
still in its planning stages. “I haven’t
seen that commitment implemented”
Carter
Third, the station is classified as a
public radio station, which means
that its goal is to be self-supporting;
the original plan was to accomplish
that in five years.
However, Chambers said that he
does not see the station moving
quickly enough in that direction.
“We are nowhere near self-sus
taining,” Chambers said.
The station currently gets approx
imately half its support from Title III
federal grant money. The fear among
some observers is that those grants
could dry up at any time.
Baker said that because the station
started off as undersfaffed and under
funded, the university may have put
the cart before the horse in terms of
its financial expectations.
“For the first two-and-a-half
years, we weren’t able to implement
[the original five-year plan for the
station], because we didn’t have the
resources,” Baker said.
“For the first two years, we didn’t
have a development director,’ said
Baker. “[Maria Ewing Keller] came
on board about
12 months ago.”
A s
Development
Director,
Ewing-Keeler
is in charge of
fundraising;
the Fears report
was highly
complimentary
of her efforts.
The report also cited friction
between Baker and Carter, which
they both downplay.
“In any organization, from time to
Ewing-Keeler
Bouna Ndiaye on the air during his Sunday afternoon “Bonjour
Africa” show on WNCU. Below, a graph representing research
into the extent of WNCU’s listenership as of spring 1998.
STAFF PHOTO BY PAUL PHIPPS
WNCU BROADCAST AREA, SPRING 1998
Fiwidn
1%
Waitren
0%
Kote
Orani0e
15%
m
GnmMa
5%
Ourlwm
' 43%
time, people bump heads,” Baker
said. “We work out our differences
and keep going.”
“In nearly every department.
everybody disagrees, so I don’t see
why my department was singled
See WNCU, page 2
Renowned
scholar
to speak
at convocation
by SHEON LITTLE
The Campus Echo
Dr. Houston Baker, Scholar in
Residence at Duke University, will
be featured speaker on April 7 at
10 a.m. as North Carolina Central
University holds its 50th Annual
Honors Convocation in the
McLendon- McDougald
Gymnasium. This year’s theme is
“In Celebration of Excellence.”
Baker, a widely published
scholar, graduated magna cum
laude and Phi Beta Kappa from
Howard University in 1965 with a
bachelor of arts degree in English.
He went on to receive his Ph. D. in
English from UCLA in 1968.
Baker holds 11 honorary doctor
ates.
In 1992, Baker was the first
African American to serve as pres
ident of the Modern Language
See HONORS, page 4
Diversity more than just a black and white issue
Campus News...
..pages 1-4
Features
page 5
Arts &
Entertainment..
page 6
Sports
page 7
Editorial
page 8
by SHEON LITTLE
The Campus Echo
Controversy over increasing diver
sity at North Carolina Central
University has once again been
sparked, this time by by a statement
the chancellor made in the Jan 7,
1999, issue of Black Issues in Higher
Education.
In the artiele, “What’s an HBCU to
Do?” Chancellor Julius Chambers
said: “Any black public college that
wants to keep its doors open will have
to be both good enough and welcom
ing enough to attract all types of stu
dents. We can keep our great tradition
and position of being a haven for stu
dents who need nurturing, but we had
better realize that more and more of
those students won’t be black, and that
we will have to reach out to every
body.”
The chancellor’s statement came at
about the same time as a notice to
alumni requesting the names of
prospective Caucasian students for the
admissions office. Historically black
colleges often print notices encourag
ing the enrollment of non-black stu
dents, similar to notices provided by
predominantly white universities to
encouraging the enrollment of Afiican
Americans and other non-white stu
dents.
Chambers contends that having stu
dents attend a university with a more
diverse setting will be “in their [the
students’] long-term best interest.”
But the possibility of increasing the
non-black population has long been a
Diversity in NCCU’s classrooms continues to be a hot-button issue as
students and administrators discuss the school’s future.
STAFF PHOTO BY PAUL PHIPPS
concern of NCCU students. In 1971,
when NCCU was on the verge of
merging with the UNC System, stu
dents marched in Raleigh in protest.
Twenty-eight years later, some
NCCU students are uncomfortable
not just with increasing populations of
white students but also of foreign stu
dents. Phyllis Shumate, director of
Diversity and Multicultural Services
and Foreign Student advisor, says that
many of the international students
whom she advises feel that they are
not accepted at the University.
Currently, there are approximately
170 foreign students on campus, rep
resenting more than 15 different coun
tries. The largest numbers are from
Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria and
China.
“Any black public college that wants to keep its
doors open will have to be both good enough and
welcoming enough to attract all types of students. ”
-NCCU Chancellor Julius Chambers
Many students from Trinidad and
Tobago live in Aimie Day Shepard
residence hall. On March 18, a forum
called “Culture Clash” was held there
for the purpose of airing grievances
between American and international
students.
The forum was attended by 25
Armie Day Shepard residents ,includ-
ing only six American students. Many
of the international students remarked
that they saw the lack of attendance as
a sign that most American students do
not want to get to know them.
Before the meeting, Trinidadian stu
dents compiled a list of things that
they felt people were holding against
them. The main complaint seemed to
be that American students felt that the
international students were getting an
unfair share of scholarship and grant
money.
However, international students
only receive scholarships based on
academics. Because they are not U.S.
citizens, they are not eligible for finan
cial aid.
Student Government Association
President-elect Clifton Gray said he
plans to include a committee called
Cultural Diversity on the 1999-2000
executive board. This committee,
which will be co-chaired by one inter
national student and one American
student, will serve to “remedy the ten
sions between different races, cultures
and nationalities,” he said.
Also, an organization called
International Student Association was
started on campus this year. The group
is planning to have an international
festival in April.
Election
inspires
decent
turnout
Bowers
McAllister
by KIM ROSS
The Campus Echo
An unusually
high number of
North Carolina
Central
University voters
turned out to pro
vide landslide
victories for all
winners on
March 3.
Despite unfa
vorable weather Gray
conditions,
which caused polls to close early,
there was a record 900 voters .partici
pating in the 1999-2000 student elec
tion that named Clifton gray as
Student
Government
Association pres
ident, Cedric
Bowers as vice
president, and
C a m e s h a
McAllister as
Miss NCCU.
Election week
kicked off on
Feb. 28 with the
Miss NCCU Pageant, which intro
duced students to Miss NCCU candi
dates Adonna Bannister, Melissa
Best, Coren Burton. Camesha
McAllister, and
Melissa Shelton.
Each candi
date answered
questions and
displayed such
talents as
singing, poetry
reading, and the
atrical perfor
mance. The
event attracted a
packed house at the B.N. Duke
Auditorium.
See ELECTION, page 2
Tuitions
raised
by UNC
From staff reports
North Carolina Central
University students will be paying
more in tuition and fees in 1999-
2000, but this time they can blame
the University of North Carolina
system, not the General Assembly,
for the increase.
On March 19 the UNC Board of
Governors approved a 4.9 percent
increase for in-state undergraduates.
Graduate students at non-research
universities such as NCCU will pay
6.9 percent more; and graduate stu
dents at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C.
State will pay 8.4 percent more.
Out-of-state students will pay the
same dollar amount in increase as
— but a lower percentage than —
N.C. residents.
The increase means higher bills
for North Carolinians starting in the
fall, ranging from $38 to $122 more
a year. Next year’s undergraduate
tuition at NCCU will be $1,887 for
in-state residents and $9,157 for
nonresidents.
UNC President Molly Broad said
the undergraduate increase is rea
sonable because North Carolina’s
per-capita personal income rose at
the same rate last year. Broad said
graduate students should pay more
because their education is more
costly and complex.