Hi everyone! Apologies for the tardiness of my post. I have been in the process of moving and have also had to dash out of town because of an unforeseen family issue.
I will not be able to attend class this evening, but my formal post is still forthcoming. In (temporary) lieu of it, I will post a few questions/comments that I wanted to address in class. I hope they make up, in part, for my absence!
Because June Jordan’s 1969 essay on Black Studies plays such a large role in Roderick Ferguson’s analysis and because it is such an important and compelling piece, I’ve added a scan of it to the Group “Files” site. Must reading (and it’s fairly short). (Sorry for the small type; couldn’t increase it.)
Possible CUS research topics might include (and this is not an exhaustive list, by any means):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell
Hi all- I apologize for the late post. It took me longer than I expected to get through the book- but very glad to have done so.
Biondi’s book offered a welcomed insight into a particular chapter of the ongoing struggle for equity and justice within the context of an education system.
One of the aspects which I appreciated was the way in which the nuances in activism and mobilization of students were explored as part of a larger social and political context. Biondi not only told the story of the social action days and moments of visibility but also some of the behind the scenes collaborations, negotiations and conflicts within and between groups. In addition, there is an exploration of how the community-based grassroots organizations and the arts and media intersected with the push for Black Studies in higher education. One also could get a sense of the ways various events and individuals were interconnected in the larger historical thread.
In thinking of our current political climate I think there may be some nostalgia around the stories of students mobilizing to demand change- yet this account gives some insight into the day to day realities of this time period and many examples of the brutality with which the higher education system and government responded. I wondered if the way so many stories of state sanctioned murders, suspension of civil liberties, blatant hostility have been ignored or forgotten is a predictor of how future generations may remember our current social political climate- taking pieces here and there of the large narrative based on media coverage-or if the spread of social media will allow for a fuller and more accessible account of attempts at resistance and the ways power continues to be misused and abused. Has social media afforded us some protection?
In some of relatively brief moments when Black students and other students of color came together, I was intrigued regarding the rationales or dynamics which may have led to ultimate separations of “issues” or “causes”. I was not surprised to learn of how the strategy of divide and conquer was applied but I also got the sense that there were some fundamental positions or demands the Black student organizers sought which stood apart from other groups of color or vice versa. Was this reflective of an undeveloped analysis of internalized anti-black racism and ethnocentrism? There was some attention to the question of white people’s involvement in the movement but also in the building of Black studies that followed- which I believe is a debate which goes on today when schools react to racist incidents and look to implement trainings or level personnel changes. This perspective was in many ways a contrast with the recurrent theme around international solidarity built on anti war and anti colonial ideologies. I really found this exploration of the interworks of faculty and students’ activist work fascinating and an often ignored topic- I think there is a tendency to homogenize the category of “student activists” or think of participants of a movement as being harmonious and cohesive groups. It was particularly interesting to consider the way patriarchy and homophobia were either identified and challenged- or what seems to be more often the case- tolerated or ignored for the sake of elevating black (male) identity. In the coming together of liberal and progressive circles in response to a “common enemy” in our current administration, I wonder how much of this lack of acknowledging the importance of viewing the struggle for liberation as an intersectional endeavor continues to exist and get in the way of effective social action.
The accounting of the ways universities and governments colluded in the use of state violence against students brought up for me the question of how do we measure success following the fact lives were lost in the process? So many young people of color, in particular Black students, were harmed in so many ways to force higher education to think and exist outside its box- and yet so many solutions continued to come from “boxed” thinking. I am not minimizing the gains and opportunities which were created on the backs of the number of young people who literally put their bodies on the line. How can those of us who agree with the values of equity and justice reconcile our participation in the often watered down, marginalized, white washed versions the institutionalized “Black perspective” in higher education given those before us paid such a high price? While the acknowledgment of Black Studies as an actual field of knowledge, research and study opened the doors to further cracking the colonial education machine for other groups, have people of color and their white allies today compromised the particular the emphasis on Blackness which transcends white concepts and the honoring of close ties to the community which was a big part of the success and vision of this movement? In many ways, the creation of Black Studies, reminds me of a metaphor I heard once: You can’t stand up straight in a crooked room. And yet, what does the next step in this historical thread of movements towards justice and freedom looks like for our generation as faculty and students? How does this history inform our understanding of the role of higher education and our consideration of the possibilities of what could be?
Has anyone heard of Christopher Gunderson? In beginning my research for the memo, I found an old reader that circulated amongst those who were willing to inquire about CUNY and its history.
I have always lamented about being born in the 1980s. After reading chapter 4, “Brooklyn College Belongs to Us,” in The Black Revolution on Campus by Biondi (2012), I wish I was around during the 1960s and 1970s. I marveled at the bravery, boldness, and social activism of Black students at Brooklyn College who organized the Black League of Afro-American Collegians (BLAC). The on-campus and off-campus leadership of Black students like Askia Davis and Orlando Pile is remarkable.
Similar to Biondi, I’m troubled that these student leaders are largely missing from the pages of history. However, I don’t find the omission surprising. The efforts that were made to make Black students feel less isolated on campus by recommending faculty, curriculum and student enrollment changes are significant. BLAC’s idea to have several Black students register for the same introductory literature course at Brooklyn College, and the audacious move to approach the professor after seeing there were no Black authors on the syllabus is no small feat.
Yet, as we approach 2020, I can attest that more needs to be done to make Black students and other students of color feel inclusive and equal on campus from the associate level to the doctoral level. I have the first-hand experience of taking a sociology course at The Graduate Center and being the only student of color and also questioning an instructor (in a non-confrontational method) about the lack of diverse scholars and authors on a syllabus. When Davis approached the instructor at Brooklyn College in 1969, he was given the option to leave the class. While I wasn’t presented with this option, I elected to drop the class because I felt isolated in more ways than one. During that same semester, I enrolled in “Intersectionality & Activist Research in the Movement for Black Lives” that was instructed by Professor Carmen Kynard. More than 90% of the class consisted of students of color, and the majority of the scholars on the syllabus were also people of color. It was the first time that I felt like I truly belonged at my campus. The instructor looked like me, my classmates looked like me and shared many of my experiences, the authors of the books and articles shared ideas and concepts that resonated with me. For once, in all of my years of being an undergraduate and graduate student at CUNY, I felt like I was not in a White-washed educational system (despite CUNY professing to be a school of great diversity).
As I reflect on Biondi’s retelling of Black students taking over Brooklyn College and my out-of-the-normal experience in Professor Kynard’s class, I wonder if my experience in Professor Kynard’s class was a hyperbolic version of a CUNY that was envisioned when BLAC presented their 18 demands to Brooklyn College administrators in 1969. I also wonder how a student-led activist movement similar to BLAC would resonate among students, faculty, and administrators of The Graduate Center. BLAC leaders were arrested, charged with felonies and misdemeanors that carried a sentence of 228 years, and sent to Riker Island as a result of trying to have the 18 demands met! Part of me wonders if there would be a similar outcome today. Are we too progressive for there to be an outcome like that, and more importantly have we become too complacent to even get to the stage of protesting? During the time of the protests occurring on CUNY campuses, Toni Cade, SEEK professor, wrote a letter to student activists and stated, “There are two traditions within our culture that are worth looking at, for they tell us a great deal about our responses. One, we have been conditioned to turn off, short out, be cool; two, we have often been pushed to make something from nothing. The first response is a negative one.” I feel like we are resting at the first response, unfortunately.
I googled Askia Davis and came across this website: https://www.askiadavis.com/authors
It’s Spring Break this week at my private university, and I am in Florida with hordes of other Spring Breakers (more on that in a sec). On my morning walk, I pass one of many new high raise buildings going up on the Intercoastal, facing water, replacing a rag tag of historic two-story apartments and hotels constructed in 1920’s or 40’s. At one particular site, I was stuck by the banners on the chained link fence surrounding this site, and by the marketing pitch for future condominiums in this building. Featured are water front mansions, white modern minimalist interiors, and a price point clearly “for the privileged few.” Obviously I am mashing up this marketing/real estate disparity with Lavin’s Right Versus Privilege, and the latest headlines about the college admissions scandal ensnaring the very rich. More on point:
While I have always viewed the Open Admission years as a golden time at CUNY, Lavin’s study represents a stark reality check to my idealism. “Moreover, in conformity with the perspective that sees education as helping to preserve ethnic and class advantages, white students appear to have enjoyed considerable advantages at CUNY under open admission … the fact remains that open admission did not eradicate ethnic differences in the initial positioning of students — positions that carry different potential for students’ educational and occupational life chances.” (Lanvin, p 277) The largest populations to enroll in the senior colleges and complete (within 5 years) during the Open Admission years were Jewish and Catholic students. Students of color predominantly enrolled in the two-year colleges, and given this start may not have completed with that window (at least in equal numbers to white classmates). And while it may be argued that this small gain had significant outcomes (in fact Lavin goes on to argue this point in his last book, Passing the Torch), it wasn’t the leveled educational field I mythologized.
Lavin breaks the bad news as such, ” higher education will adapt to open admissions by absorbing the new students in a lower track (namely, community-college vocational programs) and thereby will preserve class and ethnic privilege in the face of changes purporting to further equality of opportunity” (p 37) Now, there were gains for students of color. Significant numbers of new students entered the CUNY system, who may not have aspired to higher education before open admission. And the five year window may not been the unit of measure, given that these new students may have had to work while attending college or needed time in the system to more effectively prepare for their coursework at senior colleges.
Two thoughts, one from my own experience financing my college experiences, and the last from the enduring conflict between a practical education and a liberal one (DuBois vs. Washington, land grant vs. colonial colleges, President Michael Sorrell of Paul Quinn College vs. the Ivy league). I could also ramble on about the “value” of an institution’s diploma and the faculty perception of academic rigor as access broadens, but I am probably going to dive more deeply into that topic on my paper. (Lavin addresses this in a very interesting discussion about minority students dictating the culture versus the faculty. And this theme came up in various ways during the Pathways initiative; it certainly has peppered my two experiences with core/general education reform.)
One. In a throw away line on page 279, Lavin points out that minority students were more likely to walk into class late, turn in assignments after their due dates, and they were more likely to present a more vocation orientation to higher education. Yes. That’s right. That’s me. That’s my husband, my brother, my best friend. Those are my students. The opportunity to attend solely to one’s university studies is reserved ‘for a privileged few.’ It certainly has never been available to me. I have always worked because the scholarship, or the income, or the responsibilities of my family, my situation, demanded that I balance personal growth with economic realities. My parents couldn’t have sacrificed family resources (great in their budget, meager compared to actual costs) without ensuring that I could be employed immediately and return on their investment by supporting my siblings as they pursued their educational destinies. (Only the youngest attended as a full time student, without working a full-time job). I imagine the 1970 through 1975 cohorts of minority students also worked until the last minute before class time, and probably through playtime, sleep time, and homework time. I definitely see it in the students of color at my university, seventy percent of them working 20 hours or more per week. This data wasn’t collected for the open admission cohorts.
Which brings me to the second point, the practical versus liberal argument. We touched on this early on, and I don’t know that I can add much to the argument other than to point out that there are new voices hotly debating old themes. Recently I invited President Michael Sorrell to keynote a conference I organized titled, Equity beyond Access. I have been following his career for the last couple years, since he spoke alongside President Lee Bollinger on the future of affirmative action and most recently keynoted at SXSW EDU. He has been named to multiple lists of innovative people in higher education. At Paul Quinn College, an HBCU in Dalls, 90% of his students are Pell recipients, almost all of them work. He reduced tuition, courses use OER, partnered with corporations in Dallas, turned his football field into a kale farm, and made curricular and structural changes to their academic calendar. His students work two days a week, and the curriculum reflects this — classes revolve around their work, a service learning/internship/integrated learning model that he calls the “Urban Work College.” The fall semester ends before Thanksgiving. Funds to fly home and then back for two weeks aren’t necessarily an option for his students’ families. But what struck me is his stance that the Ivy league has nothing to teach us about higher education. Modeling higher education after Harvard makes no sense. The vast majority of future learners are going to look and act a lot more like his students than the privileged few who attend the uber-selective, highly ranked institutions that populate national headlines. I tend to agree with him on that point.
So what are my takeaways from the reading? I am concerned about how we are measuring student success, what are our assumptions, what value do we assign to college readiness or to standards of rigor or prestige, and how we determine who has access to this major vector for social mobility. Lavin asked many of those questions in Passing the Torch by looking at the women (most of the minority students during open admissions were older, and women) who may not have graduated in five years, and what educational and occupational outcomes (for themselves and future generations) did indeed come from their time at CUNY from 1970-1975.
On a final note, this is my first Spring Break. Seriously. I have always taken the week as opportunity to work (while I was an undergraduate and graduate student) or to play catch up on a quiet campus as an administrator in higher ed. I have taken other times off to travel to warm places during winter months, but this is the first time my vacation has coincided with the national spring break. Part of me is regretting take time off, with school and work deadlines looming, and part of me is bewildered that the kids wandering around in same gender six packs, are not equally stressed about not playing catch up, choosing to spend time between beach, bar and pool. Not to belabor the point, but … its “for a Privileged Few.”
A View From Hostos
In lieu of reflecting on the Phillip-Fein piece, I’ll say a few words about Hostos. I work at Hostos, it’s in the Bronx where the average household income is $45,625 vs. Staten Island: $73,496. (Indulge me, I’m going to pick on Staten Island for a bit.) Hostos is specifically in the South Bronx, where the historical and economic debt owed to the workers that cement this city together sleeps at night. For our 2016 students the average household income was $20,937; roughly the earnings of one full-time minimum wage employee ($10.50-$12.00). This is to provide for a family living in New York City, in the 21st century. Even if economic debt is a feature of our students lives, the education debt, as Gloria Ladson-Billings coined, need not be.
Why indeed does there need to be a community college in the South Bronx? Truthfully, the academic needs of our students can be met at any of the CUNY colleges. I don’t know that the rationale has as much to do with need as it does with obligation. An institute of higher education in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country is what OUGHT to exist. This obligation is often ignored, but the socio-economic reality of the South Bronx (SoBro to gentrifiers and real estate developers) is urgent. Even the brief glory of a local college with free tuition and open admissions meant repeated struggle for those at Hostos, today with tuition and open enrollment the school is still vulnerable. The fight for space, physical and intellectual, continues to this day; my office is in the “old building” aka an abandoned-then-converted tire factory. The Bronx has three times as many people as Staten Island (1.5 million vs. 480K) but only one public senior college. Also, by my calculations, the Bronx has four times as many young adults as Staten Island but only 2.4 times as many undergraduate seats in their respective CUNY colleges. Most of Hostos’ students live within walking distance, and given the average household income (above) being able to get to school without paying for transportation is crucial.
Hostos is not a response to the intellectual leisure of the bourgeoisie, or to our Horatio Alger-esque fascination with exceptionalism. The school is a quietly subversive acknowledgement of the reality of the city’s poor. A college full of poor, minoritized scholars disrupts the stereotypes used to excuse the cursory dismissal of those born in the nexus of our Venn diagram of debt. Historical/social inequity has produced a legacy of racism; economic exploitation endures along the thin wall that separate decency from destitution. The existence of Hostos is an acknowledgement that education debt exists; that it needs to be redressed where it is found, not by removing “Ragged Dicks” to loftier circumstances elsewhere.
In Chapter 4 of City on a Hill, Traub elegantly outlines the argument lines of the academic left, a cast of characters who defend the Open Admissions experiment, and the academic right, the source of the collective bemoaning of the expansion of the SEEK program and the institution of remediation. I ask, if higher education remains partisan, what became of the ideological lines that touted their own respective visions? Who picks up for Robert Marshak, who angrily defended City College against columnist Howard Adelson? And for Adelson, who advised whites to seek Queens college instead? And for Stanley Page, who claimed a liberal socked him in the stomach? And Theodore Gross, who wrote ambivalently about the new City College? Who replaces his voice at CUNY?
When I read remarks like those of Leonard Krigel (“Anyone who says that the students I was teaching in 1974 were as good as the students I was teaching in 1964 is either a liar or is perpetuating an out-and-out illusion), I wonder if the senior colleges had begun playing around with the idea of alternative assessment by 1976. To say students were arbitrarily better than others is a subjective assessment. Krigel, and those who follow, had better heed the warning of Open admissions and see the merit in applying a culturally responsive pedagogy to their efforts.
