NCSU site has new
role
African American Cultural Center aims to be asset for entire campus
By BARBARA BARRETT, Staff Writer
RALEIGH -- N.C. State University's African American Cultural Center , smelling of fresh paint and carpet, holds a lot of hope right now.
But there's also a lot of uncertainty.
The center is making a sometimes painful change in its mission -- from a student-oriented outreach program to an intellectual center that will collaborate more with the university's 10 colleges on everything from Africa's historic influences on textile design to the current plight of black farmers in North Carolina.
One national leader thinks the scholarly focus bucks a national trend for centers to become more student-oriented.
Regardless, the changes, ordered by top administrators, have left a popular director without a job and made some students nervous. They also have exposed a rift between backers of such agencies nationwide who argue about whether the centers should primarily serve African-American students or the campus at large.
NCSU leaders have no qualms about that.
"For us, this is an academic unit, and its purpose is to help the entire university community understand African-American culture and its impact on culture, whether you're black or not," said Joanne Woodard, vice provost for equity and equal opportunity and interim vice provost for diversity and African-American affairs.
That's similar to the tack taken at UNC-Chapel Hill, where the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History has evolved from a student-focused group more than a decade ago to an academic center with some community-outreach programs.
There, all artistic performances must include a scholarly component, such as a lecture or panel. A Chinese historian is joining the center as a fellow for the fall term, and Director Joseph F. Jordan is working on a program to bring African-Colombians to North Carolina to study community activism.
A $9 million free-standing building will open at UNC-CH next fall to house the Stone center after years of student and faculty struggles for official support.
At Duke University, the Mary Lou Williams Center focuses on black culture and provides a magnet for students to gather, and the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies focuses on scholarly pursuits.
NCSU's African American Cultural Center, founded in 1991 with M. Iyailu Moses at its helm, was always meant as an academic unit. It hosted lectures and an annual "heritage day" with workshops and presentations.
But Moses also made it a haven for students who needed space away from a sometimes inhospitable campus. Roderick Scott , a 2002 graduate, remembers that Moses was always available to talk.
"She'd let you know if you had any problems, go see her," Scott said. "She had a good spirit about her."
Moses left the center quietly in May. Woodard says Moses reached the end of a fixed term, but a handful of reviews of the center make clear that many thought it and its director weren't doing enough.
Moses could not be reached for comment.
Stiff criticism
An external review in 2001, ordered by a former vice provost, lambasted the center's disorganization, saying it wasn't working closely enough with the Africana Studies program and had failed to teach the majority of students and faculty about African-American culture.
It said the center was invisible to the university at large and was of little value to scholars.
Paul Finkelman , a law professor at the University of Tulsa and one of the reviewers, recalled asking Moses whether a friend of his at NCSU, a prominent expert on slavery, had ever spoken at the center. He says she didn't know the friend's name.
"The fact the director of the program didn't know she was 200 to 300 yards away from one of the world's foremost experts on slavery was astounding to me," Finkelman said. "There was nothing substantive, and that was clear."
Frederick Hord , executive director of the Association for Black Cultural Centers in Galesburg, Ill., and another external reviewer, said he tried to be more positive in his remarks about Moses. He blamed many of the problems on a lack of financial and administrative support from university officials.
And, he said recently, the moves to make NCSU's center more academically oriented go against a national trend to focus on students.
"That is not the ascendent model for centers," said Hord, who also is director of black studies at Knox College. "The mix is the trick, because you can't have academics and nothing else."
Original intent
Historically, black culture centers sprang up during the activist movements of the 1960s and '70s, as a place for students to plan actions and feel comfortable among familiar faces. Today, there are about 400 nationwide, according to the journal Black Issues in Higher Education.
The centers help universities recruit and educate black students by offering them a haven, said Fran E. Dorsey , president of the Association for Black Cultural Centers and an associate professor in the Pan-African Studies department at Kent State University in Ohio.
But Finkelman said NCSU's center should be a place not of refuge but of pride and intellectual discourse. It should host scholars, hold symposiums and make itself more relevant to the university at large, he said.
"White North Carolina kids need to learn the history of race in North Carolina. They need to understand the horrors that existed," said Finkelman, who also is a historian on slavery.
Craig C. Brookins , director of NCSU's Africana Studies program, wants much more than that, especially at a land-grant institution.
"You have everything from textiles to engineering to agriculture and life sciences," said Brookins, who now is chairman of the center's advisory board. "You've got issues of black farmers, for instance, that can be focused on."
But asking such centers to be all things isn't fair, especially when budgets hardly ever measure up, Dorsey said.
Indeed, an internal review at NCSU said last year that the center suffered from "chronic underfunding" from the provost's office.
The office's budget rose steadily over the years, peaking in 1999-2000 at $326,000, but it fell to $252,000 for the past school year.
A staffing shuffle last year got rid of a receptionist but added a worker to handle facilities.
And there has been a recent renovation of those facilities, which are split among three floors of the Witherspoon student center on campus. Bookshelves are being built for the library, and the center has new carpet and paint.
The new vice provost for diversity and African-American affairs, Jose Picart , starts work in October and will lead the national search for a director. Woodard said Moses' salary of $48,845 may change as the university seeks a nationally recognized scholar steeped in African-American culture.
This month , the center will kick off a yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which desegregated public schools.
Janet Howard , the center's interim director, thinks university leaders have a new attitude.
"I'm glad the university has decided that will be the objective, to try to strengthen it," she said. "I think strengthening is good for the center."
Staff writer Barbara Barrett can be reached at 829-4870 or bbarrett@newsobserver.com.
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