Tuskegee UniversityGreta Mason

Jana ShurtsPeriod 3

Tuskegee University University Mission:

› “Tuskegee University accomplishes its central purpose of developing leadership, knowledge and service through its undergraduate, graduate, professional, research and outreach programs. Through these programs, students are encouraged not only to pursue careers but to be of service to society and to remain active lifetime learners.  The University seeks to instill a robust thirst for knowledge and a vibrant quest for wholesale patterns of personal and social ethics that have philosophical and spiritual depth. In the process, it seeks to help each student develop an appreciation for the finer traits of human personality, the beauty of the earth and the universe, and a personal commitment to the improvement of the human condition.”

Tuskegee University Tuskegee was the first African-American

college, and continues to primarily focus on developing human resources within the African American community; however, it is open to students of any race.

Within the academics, there are five colleges: The College of Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Sciences; The College of Business and Information Science; The College of Engineering, Architecture, and Physical Sciences; The College of Liberal Arts and Education; and The College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health.

Between the five different colleges, there are 39 different Bachelor degrees, 13 Master’s programs, and three Doctorate programs.

Booker T. Washington was the first teacher, and the college was founded on July 4, 1881

Tuskegee University The average ACT score is 12-17 Although the school excepts any race,

75% of students are black, 24% are other, and one percent is white.

The average age of the school is 30 years

The History of Tuskegee University

“We should give credit to George Campbell, a former slave owner, and Lewis Adams, a former slave, tinsmith and community leader, for their roles in the founding of the University. Adams had not had a day of formal education but could read and write. In addition to being a tinsmith, he was also a shoemaker and harness-maker. And he could well have been experienced in other trades. W. F. Foster was a candidate for re-election to the Alabama Senate and approached Lewis Adams about the support of African-Americans in Macon County.

What would Adams want, Foster asked, in exchange for his (Adams) securing the black vote for him (Foster). Adams could well have asked for money, secured the support of blacks voters and life would have gone on as usual. But he didn’t. Instead, Adams told Foster he wanted an educational institution - a school - for his people. Col. Foster carried out his promise and with the assistance of his colleague in the House of Representatives, Arthur L. Brooks, legislation was passed for the establishment of a ‘Negro Normal School in Tuskegee.’”

The History of Tuskegee University

Although Adams is accredited with the idea, Booker T. Washington is accredited with the title founder, because he was president of the college from the day it opened until the day he died in 1915. It was under his leadership that the college flourished

Sources:› http://www.linkedin.com/companies/tuskegee-university› http://www.earnmydegree.com/online-education/college-campus/alabama/tuskegee/tu

skegee-university.html› http://www.tuskegee.edu/global/category.asp?C=34069

Analysis While the school claims to allow students of all races, it is still a

minority dominated school. By keeping the school a minority dominated school, the school, we feel, is limiting its students and keeping them enclosed within their own race. Keeping them within their own race limits them, not allowing them to be involved with people of all races and holding them back from what the world entails. It seems as though the school is protecting it students from the outside world.

The school wants to improve the human condition, focusing primarily on math and sciences, but it barely touches on the liberal and social sciences. It is as though the school is ok with how things are now, not wanting to focus on such subjects as education and psychology, and are waiting for things to be fixed around them. They still hold true to Washington’s idea of waiting.

Connection to IM “Then in my mind’s eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father

symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted or lowered more firmly in place (36)

The statue of the founder still stands at the school today and is on the school’s crest. The statue, upon close examination, seems degrading of the Black people. The way the slave sits is primate like, and portrays a stereotypical black man with big ears and lips, and strong arms. Today, it’s as though the veil has never moved at Tuskegee, still being partially on. Those attending there seem to be kept in an idyllic world, not exposed to everything around them. This is like IM when he attended the school. He was kept confined

Connection 2 “’And I’ll tell you something your sociology teachers are

afraid to tell you,’ he said. ‘If there weren’t men like me running schools like this, there’d be no South.’”› The school appears that they are trying to uplift their students

to success by placing them in the “successful” fields of our world today: medicine, engineering, and technical sciences. However, the school is lacking in the social sciences: like psychology. The sciences that engage the more emotional, more feeling part of the mind are lacking in the school. It is as though they are trying to uplift and encourage their students by putting them in “successful” careers, yet do not acknowledge the freer types of majors that encourage creativity, like English and music. Lacking in these types of majors shows the school to be a little more constrained, without a major emphasis on the exploration of creativity of the mind.

Video http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj5_RwDaDsI