Newspaper Page Text
Grant at a Glance
The following quotes were
taken from messages delivered
to graduates in the past. These
quotes are still very relevant
today to the graduates of 1985. I
hope that you find them very
meaningful and inspiring. May
they add to your knowledge and
experience as you embark on a
new journey beyond the gates of
Spelman College.
“Why were you born? You
were born to search for ex
cellence. Fourteen or fifteen
years of your life young brother
and sister, you have already
spent, and just this year you are
finding out that life is a search for
excellence.
If life is a search for excellence,
what is this excellence and why
must we search for it? According
to the dictionary, to achieve
excellence is to have arrived at
the best way of doing something,
and to excell at something means
the best way. Let me ask you
something: What was George
Washington and his friends
looking for when they revolted
against the King of England?
They were dissatisfied, they were
looking for excellence, they
were trying to set up a govern
ment which they felt would be
best, for their people. Why was
Columbus willing to sail 9,000
miles across an ocean that was
unfamiliarto Europeans when he
could have gone east by sailing
east as we had taught them to do.
He wasn't satisfied. He was
looking for a better way. He was
looking for excellence you could
say. Why did Lowell, Grimson,
Scherra, White and other
astronauts make flights into
outer space to land on the
moon? They were in search of
excellence.
I'm not asking you to get
involved in light stuff, I’m asking
you today to excel in one thing
and that is at being yourself
because you were the one that
made it, you were one in a
million. I want you to find the
best way possible of being
yourself. Being yourself? that
should be easy to do: I tell you
that if you could be yourself, you
could be whatever anyone else is
doing and better.”
To the Graduates - 1984. A
Search for Excellence "Excel at
being yourself’’ by Sonia
Sanchez (this excerpt was taken
from her message which
appeared in U M OJ A
newsmagazine, 1984.)
"What has been available to
you here and what you take away
is really not available in very
many places... a sense of belong
ing, a sense of mission, and,
particularly, an intimacy with
your history and your culture.
This knowledge comes hard,
very hard, to many of us. This
knowledge comes hard to many
people on the globe. This
knowledge of who you are ...
what you know of value, and
what there is to protect. You
have been educated by your
people and they have given it to
you.
You are a community of black
women. There is nothing like it
in the world. There is nothing
like it in the world. There is
nothing as magical. There is
nothing as potentially powerful.
There is nothing so fierce ...
nothing so nurturing as a com
munity of black women who
know who they are.
There is another education
that you have received here, in
addition to the academic one. It
is an education that is still rare in
this country. You have learned
what you learned, and felt what
you have felt, and done what you
have done in the company of
other black women.
Many of your sisters are
elsewhere. I go there. I see them
... all over ... too many of them
are miserable. Too many of them
I see struggle and fight daily,
hourly, for the simplest dignity...
for the most minor recognition.
The Spelman community is
simply a life-support system. It is
a network of strength that is so
complete, it is practically the last
place where the word sister is a
real and meaningful word.”
Toni Morrison, Author
Commencement
May, 1978
What Morrison and Sanchez
has conveyed is that what we
have learned behind the gates of
Spelman College, we must carry
beyond in our search for ex
cellence. We have just com
pleted one such search. Now we
will embark on another. In this
new search, as we have or should
have done in our past search, we
must excel in being ourselves.
Only then will we be able to
effectively use what we have
learned.
Editor-in-Chief
News Editors
Carolyn Grant
Jasmine Williams
Debbie Marable
Sports Editor
Marie Roberts
Feature Editor
Wanda Yancey
Literary Editor
Carol Lawrence
Political Editor
Sydney Perkins
Health Editor
Angela Hubbard
Layout Editor
Natalie Heard
Art Editor
Debra Johnson
Circulation Manager
Triphenya Zachery
Advisor
Kimberly McElroy
Reporters
Valerie K. Bright
Photo Editor
Dawn M. Lewis
Jennifer Satterfield
Photographers
Associate Editor
Kathleen Tait
Lynette Glover
Joanna Griffith
The Spelman Spotlight is a bi-monthly publication produced by and
for the students of Spelman College. The Spotlight office is located in
the Manley College Center, lower concourse, of Spelman College.
Mail should be addressed to Box 1239, Spelman College, Atlanta,
Georgia 30314. Telephone number is 525-1743.
Along the Color Line: College Education:
For The Rich Only?
Perhaps the best index of
social inequality is the
accessibility of higher education
to people of color in the United
States. After his reelection, Presi
dent Reagan proposed the
elimination of student loans
from families earning above
$32,500 per year, and an annual
ceiling of $4,000 for federal loans
to all eligible students. This effort
is yet another indication of how
far we have declined from the
popular consensus of two
decades ago concerning the
necessity of providing access to
higher education to all.
Desegregation campaigns of
the 1960s forced white public
and private academic institutions
to permit the enrollment of
Black students for the first time.
The number of Black faculty,
administrators and students also
increased dramatically at white
schools in the North and West.
Such gains were not simply the
product of the demise of Jim
Crow, but occurred due to
expanded federal financial loans
to low and moderate income
students. Philanthropic agen
cies, pressured by the Civil
Rights and Black Power
movements, belatedly provided
millions of dollars in grants and
scholarships to Black students.
Since the late 1970s, with the
national retreat from the “Se
cond Reconstruction,” the
pressure to accelerate Black
educational opportunities was
retarded, and during Reagan’s
tenure the tide has been revers
ed. The percentage fo Black high
school seniors going directly into
four year colleges has fallen
sharply.
The latest trend on campuses,
the shocking increases in tuition
fees, will also have a direct
impact on minority education.
At a time when inflation has
cooled off for several years,
college costs continue to climb.
The Ivy League schools lead the
way. Princeton University’s
overall costs for tuition, room
and board will be $14,940 next
fall; Yale University, $15,020;
Brown University, $14,765; Dart
mouth College, $14,860. Other
elite, private institutions are
charging roughly the same fees,
if not more. This year’s tuition
and fees at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology cost a
staggering $16,130. Wesleyan
University in Connecticut plans
to increase student charges next
year by 8.5 percent, to $14,440;
Stanford University is hiking fees
7.5 percent, to $14,893; St.
Lawrence students will face costs
of $15,376, an increase of 7
percent. Higher tuition costs are
less severe for state supported
institutions, but nevertheless
remain quite steep. The Univer
sity of Connecticut at Storrs, for
example, plans to increase in
state students, faculty and staff. If
such measures aren't taken, the
percentage of Black and Latino
students who complete four year
programs at universities will fall
sharply before the 1990s. A
college education should not be
for the rich alone.
Dr. Manning Marable teaches
political sociology at Colgate
University, Hamilton, New York.
"Along the Color Line” appears
in over 140 newspapers inter
nationally.