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136 Coming to the University of Washington Dr. Charles Evans had impressive credentials. In addition to being president of the University of Washington Faculty Senate, he had a PhD in microbiology. As senate president, he had taken the first steps toward organizing a program that would serve the needs of minority students. He was director of the Special Education Program (sep), which he operated with volunteers and a small budget. I first met Charles because he attended our conference on minority education in 1967. Over the weeks after the conference, I discussed with him my plans and vision for Shoreline’s Minority Affairs Program. When he asked me how I got it done, I explained that the students must be on your side; they must have confidence in your commitment to change. Charles told me he had difficulty getting students to be on his side. I was blunt. “One of the reasons is that you’re white, not black! How can you know how a black person feels when he’s riding in the back of the bus? How would you be able to identify with that? I’m not knocking you personally , because we need each other. America’s a great country, but we need each other to change the nation.” I told him how I felt about the name Special Education Program for students of color. It had a bad connotation, suggesting that those enrolled in the program had some type of deficiency and did not deserve to be at the university. I don’t know how Charles Evans felt about my advice, but he did ask me to consult with him on a paid basis, beginning in 1968. I agreed to walk him through the steps we had taken to set up the successful program at Shoreline Community College. Charles Evans and the University of Washington needed a lot of help. In May 1968, E. J. Brisker, Larry Gossett, and other black students and their supporters had occupied the administration building. They demanded financial resources for recruiting and tutoring non-white ChAPtEr 9 137 Coming to the University of Washington students, a Black Studies program, and the recruitment of black faculty and administrators. I was more familiar than most of the UW faculty with the events unfolding on the campus that spring. I knew E. J. Brisker and Larry Gossett , both of whom had spoken to my class at Shoreline. Soon I had another advantage; I became a member of the Black Student Union. Although I was forty-two-years-old, had three degrees, had been a colonel in the U.S. Army, and was assistant to the president at Shoreline , my enrollment in a graduate program at the University of Washington , by my reckoning, made me a student. Since the Black Student Union charter said that any student at the University of Washington is eligible for membership, I presented myself at the meetings. The members accepted me. Attending bsu meetings on the UW campus in 1969 and 1970 gave me a vantage point from which to see the politics of the campus, and from what I observed, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved. JAMES GOODMAN But I also had an important friend and contact on the UW faculty, Dr. James Goodman. Jim Goodman, who held a PhD in sociology from the University of Minnesota and taught in the School of Social Work and in the Sociology Department, was one of only a handful of black faculty members on campus in 1969. He also served as the first director of the UW’s Black Studies program between 1968 and 1970 and was thus the first black administrator at the university. Jim mentored me and taught me how to think about the climate of the University of Washington. When he asked me if I would ever consider leaving Shoreline for the university , I rejected the idea. “No,” I said. “Frankly, I think some of those black students are crazy.” We were joking, of course, but I knew that none of the students and certainly no one in the UW administration seemed to have a plan for dealing with the grievances that had become public in the spring of 1968. “I’m an old army man,” I told Jim. “I couldn’t work there.” “Well, Sam, that’s what they need,” he replied. Later, I began to warm to the idea. Despite the success of the Minority [3.147.104.120] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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