No 'Sugar Coating' In ECU Brochure
This article reports on the ECU recruitment brochure's openness regarding racial problems on campus. This and other articles may be found in the records of the Chancellor's Office, CH1050, Series 1, Scrapbook File, 1914-1978 in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "No 'Sugar Coating' In ECU Brochure," Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, N.C. March 22, 1971.
RALEIGH-
East Carolina University has had “open displays of prejudice by some whites to some blacks.”
Some black students have been discriminated against by white professors.
There are no black faculty members, and there are very few jobs available to black students in the Greenville area.
These statements are openly made by the ECU admissions office in a recruiting pamphlet designed to get more black students.
It’s not as strange as it sounds.
The admissions office, knowing that some black high school seniors are reluctant to ask the questions they have on their minds, asked several black ECU students to come up with materials that would answer them.
The experimental pamphlet they put together is a four-section foldout with an ECU coed with an Afro hairstyle on the front and no sugar-coating of the campus situation inside.It was presented to the N.C. Board of Higher Education Friday and its director, Dr. Cameron West, praised it as ‘one of the most exciting (admissions) brochures we’ve seen.”
A committee of five black students put together a list of 25 questions and answers.The topics included racial discrimination, financial aid, dormitory integration, black organizations and black studies, black athletes, interracial dating and the university’s attitude toward protest demonstrations (OK if no laws are broken).
It also discusses such non-racial areas as church attendance, the dress code, use of hot plates in rooms, proximity to downtown Greenville and shopping centers.
Dr. John Horne, ECU director of admissions, says the brochure is definitely intended to bring black students onto the campus.According to figures at the Board of Education, ECU enrolled 1.6 per cent black students in 1970. This was considered low even for a predominantly white institution, particularly since the campus is located in a region with a large Negro population.
Horne said that while ECU application forms don’t ask about race, the pamphlet is sent to all who indicate they are black.
On the question of black student unity, the pamphlet says that “we believe that attending a predominantly white institution tends to bring black students much closer together than if they were attending a predominantly black institution or even in everyday life.”
As an example of this solidarity, the pamphlet says, black upperclassmen tell Freshmen which faculty members seem to practice racial discrimination so they can try to avoid their classes.
It also says that while interracial dating does exist on campus, “It is not condoned by a majority of black students.”
It notes that in the past, when black and white freshman were assigned as roommates, the whites usually moved out.Now, it says, there is interracial assignment by mutual consent.
In an opening message to “fellow black students,” the special recruitment committee asks that “the student, in reviewing the answers, keep in mind that the college campus is really a microcosm of society as a whole.”
“Those factors and influences that we find in our high schools, in our hometown communities, and in our state and nation are exemplified, at one time or another, in every college community."
