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Access to Higher Education
Arnold L. Goren and Ed Hoyer, Jr.
To The Editor:
The article by K. Edward Renner in the January-February issue seemed to be devoid of memory. I have been a member of the AAUP for more than fifty years and suggest that a little background is in order.
I was the dean of admissions at New York University when Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. At NYU, we have a long history of preparing large numbers of minority school teachers. The funds for that forgotten activity were provided by southern organizations that sent their minority graduate students to New York and elsewhere for reasons that were surely related to regional prejudice. These sources of funds and others were drying up when King was killed.
The day after King's death, NYU, with the help of several philanthropists, created a scholarship program that benefited many, many minority students. We also helped in the fight to establish the Higher Education Opportunity Program, which has graduated more than 30,000 minority students in New York state, with more than 3,000 at NYU alone.
I do not quarrel with Renner's analysis, but I do wish that we could take a longer view of what has been achieved. To put it simply, I believe that we made a great number of role models and helped to create a larger black middle class in a remarkably short time. That would not have been possible without the development of support programs of all types. If someone should wish to ask me, I could tell them what we were thinking as we did this and even how long we thought this effort would go on. It does not matter that whites also have had significant gains during these years. That is fine. It does matter that minorities have also benefited by programs that were established and put into place forty and more years ago. We should not delude ourselves about what these programs achieved. Neither should we forget their successes.
Arnold L. Goren
(Higher Education), Emeritus
New York University
To The Editor:
While K. Edward Renner states in the January-February issue that the relative supply of minority students has bbbeen increasing, that does not necessarily mean any of those students are interested in attending college. Attending college is still an individual choice made by the student. Lack of money and academic preparation are only two of the many factors that influence students of any race to ignore higher education. If fewer minorities are choosing to attend college, then colleges need to survey minorities while they are in high school and find out what factors are influencing their decisions to stop their educations.
Once these factors are determined, colleges need to develop cooperative programs with the public schools to increase awareness of higher education as a life choice, to identify potential college enrollees, and to prepare students for the academic challenge of college. Colleges, and critics, need to understand that not every high school graduate is interested, or will ever be interested, in attending more years of school.
Ed Hoyer, Jr.
(Librarian)
Southern Connecticut State University
K. Edward Renner Responds:
The only way to be sure not to win the lottery, or the benefits of higher education, is not to buy the ticket. Not buying the ticket is due to some combination of personal disposition and lack of opportunity.
In those areas of endeavor where there is equality of opportunity, such as the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, there is no shortage of minority disposition. I have no idea how many hours star player Allen Iverson dribbled a basketball as a kid, but it required remarkable motivation. My guess is that there is no intrinsic lack of disposition among minorities for higher education. However, socially, the only way we can address the nature versus nurture debate is to ensure equality of opportunity and see what happens.
This requires removing the inequalities that we know to exist, which put future generations at a disadvantage. We also need to give access to those among us who have the capacity to overcome opportunities already denied, which put them on unequal footing at the admissions start line.
This two-pronged social intervention philosophy, advanced in my article, rejects the theory of individual determination advanced by Hoyer in his letter. Rather, my proposals accept both the necessity, and the greater efficiency, of attempting to change circumstances, not individuals. Because higher education is not an entity, there are no mechanisms to accomplish the individualistic approach Hoyer suggests. On the other hand, equality approaches address lack of opportunity and are both a mandatory and achievable social goal.
K. Edward Renner
(Higher Education)
Consultant
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