AAU Membership at What Cost?

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 21, 1999 by Bill Robinson

The Match Goes Out

USC isn't alone in wrestling with the challenges of trying to integrate its faculty. Clemson President Constantine Curtis earlier last year created a Commission on Black Faculty and Staff issues to serve as a conduit for concerns that minority employees might have about working conditions.

Several years ago, women at Clemson pushed and won support for a similar commission that confronted the delicate question of salary inequities. The new panel, chairman Bruce Ransom says, is designed to be a permanent fixture on the bucolic campus in the Piedmont foothills.

"There are individual staff members and faculty members who may have some grievances about some matters," Ransom admits.

Clemson professor Herman Green runs a center that tries to increase minority participation in higher education. He was eager to serve on the task force when asked.

"I think it's a good idea," Green says. "I expect some problems to be solved."

Clemson hasn't been without its problems involving minority faculty members. The land-grant university recently was named in two lawsuits -- one by a former professor who said he was unfairly fired, and one by a current professor who claims he was denied a promotion because he is Black.

Green says he's sure tenure and promotion will be the subject of task force deliberations. But he's also realistic.

"If we're going to solve problems, no one group is going to do it. We just see things differently. That's human nature. Different people have different perspectives and we've got to find a way to find middle ground that's comfortable to everybody," Green says.

Meanwhile, as Green tries to get Blacks interested in going on to college, one of Pigford's projects was keeping them there -- as professors. She spearheaded a drive to create a new graduate program aimed at luring African American graduate students into the professoriate, coaxing commitments from her superiors to back a campaign to win a Kellogg Foundation grant. (See Black Issues, March 5, 1998.)

But while she managed to win support from the administration for a program to produce more Black faces that someday could stand in front of a classroom, Pigford became increasingly troubled by concerns from her peers. Her departure from USC in September took the administration by surprise.

"Maybe the match that had become real important to me as a person between what I need and what the organization needs -- maybe that match wasn't there any more," Pigford says.