Grad student Glasker talks on black students' history at U.

The experience of black students from the time when only seven black students attended the University to current days of multicultural education was the subject of a speech by long-time graduate student Wayne Glasker last night. Glasker's Dubois College House speech, sponsored by the Black Student League, was a preview of of his advanced disertation on black history. Glasker, a 1980 College graduate and currently an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University at Camden, told about 20 students a portion of the legacy of black students at the University. With only seven blacks in the 1920 yearbook the University experience for these students "must have been a lonely and isolated experience," Glasker said. Glasker explained that in 1879 dentistry was an area of upward mobility for blacks. He noted that it was the Dental School where the first black student at the University, James Bristner, studied. Slowly black students entered other schools at the University -- medicine in 1882, the college in 1883, engineering in 1887 and law in 1888, Glasker said. Black students faced even more rigid qualifications for acceptance at the University than did white students in the late 19th Century, Glasker said. Glasker cited Sadie Tanner Alexander, the daughter of a famous black artist, as a typical example. Alexander left the University in 1927 with a bachelor degree in education, a law degree and a Ph.D. in economics. Alexander was prohibited from eating in the cafeteria, in Houston Hall and certainly not in the local establishments, Glasker said. Students like Alexander had to eat outside on a park bench. Due to their lack of acceptance, early blacks at the University formed their own organizations such as black sororities and fraternities, Glasker said. Later, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity established science and surgical organizations for black students, he said. The 1960s marked the establishment of the Society of African-American Students, which was the forerunner of today's Black Student League. The year 1968 was a watershed for minority demographics at the university, Glasker said. The federal government threatened to withhold funds from universities if they did not pass national standards for desegregation. The state of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League schools separately held conferences to decide how to deal with this development. According to Glasker, the University took immediate action. While in 1968 the University accepted 125 black students and only 62 matriculated, in 1969 251 black students were accepted and 150 students enrolled. Many of these students were from inner-city high schools, "really changing the environment at Penn," Glasker explained. The administration expected these black students to blend into the campus scene, Glasker said. Instead, however, these students put pressure on the administration to change. The issues they brought to the forefront of university awareness are still attracting attention today, Glasker noted. A primary demand was for a school of black studies -- which was eventually fulfilled with an Afro-American studies program. Today black students seek more black faculty, Engineering senior Sheri Porter said. "I don't see anyone that I can relate to," Porter said. The demand for a mandatory course on racism finally came to partial fruition with a diversity education course for freshmen in 1989, Glasker said. DuBois College House fulfilled black students' call for a Black history learning college house where anyone with an interest in black history could live, Glasker said. He noted that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People threatened to sue the University if such a residence was established, labeling it segregation. Debate over the college house continues today with many students questioning whether it plays a positive role in the University's attempts at diversification, Glasker said. From a fraternity parading as the Ku Klux Klan for Halloween to a senior lecturer in Wharton telling black members of his class that they should be thankful everyday of their lives that they are no longer slaves, black students are continually shocked by the insensitivity of peers and professors, Glasker said. As recently as 1988, the phrase "Fuck Niggers" was scrawled on a wall in Hill House, he added. After questioning why the black student movement has died, Glasker concluded his hour-long presentation with a warning for today's black University students. "The environment hasn't changed a great deal. You will have to continue this struggle," Glasker said. Such activism has been growing, BSL President and College senior Jessica Dixon siad. She added that the purpose of the forum was "self education about the past so that we can approach the same problems in effective ways." The discussion that followed touched upon several concerns of black University students today, such as affirmative action and the recent nomination to the Supreme Court of Judge Clarence Thomas.

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