african americans that were enrolled in
pacific particularly the undergraduate
i think it could be accredited to
but those years that i was here there
was a critical mass meaning that we
always felt that we had to do something
all we had to do was organize who’s
apartment where we’re going to meet at
we’re going to meet downstairs at the
mccaffrey wherever we’re going to meet
up we’ll have a conversation and then we
go out and say this is what we’re going
the years that i was here
what was the name of that fraternity
anyways they had the audacity to put up
a confederate flag um and no one was
saying anything about it and then we had
to go and bring it to the president you
know um how offensive that was um
you know to uh to our identity and to
all students of color identity
you know so it was a much more active
group in regard but it had to do with
so the critical mass piece i think was a
a part of several things i think you
know pacific has always been a division
the years that i was there um elena odom
was a women’s volleyball player
powerhouse student brilliant as well as
a phenomenal athlete she had bought the
volleyball championship to pacific
you know ncaa african american wamish
now lives in southern california
and then another young woman the name of
her name was kathy she was a part of
volleyball women’s team but these are
black young women that were at the
highest of their athletic performance at
taking the campus to a national level
a um the met the wolves only men but i
also had a football program was still in
place now to be honest with you elaine
there was a substantial number of
african-american students young men
who were also on scholarship through the
so and they had come from everywhere
had come from out of state
they had come from in-state
but you would see black males walking
this campus and they were football
so when pacific decided to drop its
athletic program division one football
and if you were to go and do an analysis
of the enrollment of undergraduate
african americans you would see a direct
correlation to when that program ended
and a decline in the overall black
student enrollment particularly the
the other thing that was also part of
the critical mass was that there was a
and there was the black greeks in
pacific were connected to the black
greeks at uc davis were collected
connected to the black greeks at uc
connected to the black greek to san
so there would be meetups and different
campuses and so where they would come to
our campus and we would go to their
because we were regionally close enough
you know so there um was um
uh there was delta sigma theta um and
zeta say to something row
for the men there was omega sci-fi
there was the alpha men alpha phi alpha
there was a third one so i think there
greek organizations six of the divine
of having black greeks going through you
doing their things you know
having events on campus you know the
black greek stuff was exciting because
you know black greeks you know could
dance like nobody could because they
know how to step you know having step
shows on campus that just kind of
where people understood other students
knew there was black there was a black
student presence on campuses so i think
that when you have critical mass
it’s several things that are required an
institution has to invest in programs
that support black student success and
from the university perspective from a
local perspective i believe it was the
it had a higher enrollment of
african-american students that it has
you know i think that there’s
opportunity for us to understand you
know how we can get more african
american students into that program
because i came through that program and
there were other black students with me
so that was one place where there was
institutional support that brought in a
a cohort of black students
there was these athletic you know
programs that brought in very talented
student athletes and that’s reason i
mentioned the young women on the
volleyball team because they you know
elena and i lived in the same dorm the
southwest and she was just the star and
you know and then she ended up shooting
in the 90s she ended up playing um
volleyball in the 96 olympics you know
so she was really a star athlete um and
kathy who came from sacramento she was
younger than me but they were just
really star athletes but they were
attracted to pacific because of the
athletic program but they were also
great students i mean like really
really great students and then you had
all these young men and many of them
ended up going out to the business world
now we have one of them that has
returned to be on our board of regents
he graduated two years after me he
graduated in 91 in the economics
department and he’s a brand new member
of the pacific board of regents and he
was on that football team wow so um
so those are some of the things i think
community involvement program um a
strong athletics program and a robust
kind of black greek life and you put all
those together now you see why that
pan-african american african student
you know because there wasn’t one kind
and still find your people you could be
a black student athlete and still find
your people you could be kind of i don’t
and there was everybody could find
themselves yeah and nobody you know and
literally you know we knew who
were like i said you we found that i
learned there were many ways to be black
in the world that’s so cool so then
because there’s a lesser black presence
those of us who are black and
african-american to become more engaged
because it doesn’t there doesn’t appear
to be as many things happening well the
thing is that um the work that what i
described the institution supported it
so that i do believe there’s
institutional accountability in this
world okay i am an institutional actor
so i know that institutions have
accountability because institutions can
either create the environment or not
for the students themselves
i think the students have to find each
other and we have to find ways to
nurture them finding each other um and
then we have to find ways to not only
nurture them finding each other but how
to find their voice or help them to be
able to engage their voice in in
what i see happening right now at
pacific i see just kind of pockets of
i see small groups of african-american
athletes it’s a lot less now than the
oftentimes one or two students
african-american students that are just
kind of in their majors kind of trying
to get through it by themselves
they have a lot of you know personal
uh stories that’s driving them to stay
in it because when i sit down and i talk
to them okay now there’s a narrative
there that’s the reason why they just
continue to persist because they don’t
really have a support system around them
but they may have obviously have family
and things of that but i’m talking about
the type that i’m i’m referring to so it
takes a lot for an individual to do that
and it’s lonely to do that too
um and so one of the things that i will
say is that this project is an important
but but anytime i find a black student i
always try to make sure that i introduce
them to someone else and another thing
is that because i believe in solidarity
i believe that collectivism and
solidarity has always moved people of
color forward um you know you look in
66 67 68 69 you look in the ways in
which the african-american
um and particularly the asian-american
communities as well as indigenous
communities but you saw how they moved
together in what was kind of the third
world that’s what it was called that
time but it was a movement that was
really important in the 60s and really a
lot of that work you know was grounded
here in the bay area actually oakland
was like the grounds it was really the
uh city um and then stockton was not
that far away from it um i really
believe that there’s power
in black and brown communities engaging
together you know and i i use that kind
loosely meaning that black and brown is
anybody that sees and identifies with
that but i believe in the collectivism
of those groups moving forward so right
a young woman came to see me recently
and she said you know uh dr wardell we
started a new black and brown student
alliance i said really and i say who
just doing gummy she says anybody that
anybody that feels like they’re part of
that group because she says we feel like
we have there’s so few of us that we
have to band together in order to have
voice and i said you’re doing exactly
what your four mothers and your
forefathers have done i said that’s
exactly what you need to do and there’s
nothing wrong with you know within when
students go in and find identity with
have like you know uh you know ethnic
racial and other cultural experiences
when they’re when you do that in
solidarity that’s right that’s right you
know so it’s not an either or
um identity is not it’s never identity
and coalition building has never been an
either or it’s always been a both hand
african americans will find uh strength
in numbers on their own alliances and
then they go in solidarity with other uh
groups in order to advance causes and i
said that has been a a playbook that our
elders have taught us how to do that you
know we should always follow that
strength uh within our group and there’s
even more strength when you go in uh and
you collect advice and work in
i could sit and listen to you
all day you have such a minefield of
information about a heart and a passion
end with this yes i don’t really want to
is there a quote a word or phrase a
saying a passion a desire that you want
to the african american black community
as well as those who already here
to help them you know move on through
their career academic career
oh wow there’s so much there
i guess there’s anything that i want to
say particularly the black identified
that are coming in and that are here
black excellence is in you
because we are because we are
thank you so much those words are
excellent thank you so much for your
time i really appreciate it and i want