Author: Irina Rogova

This Week in the Archive: Obscene

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by Cory Schutter

Cory Schutter is a junior from Midlothian, Virginia. He is double majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. He is a Bonner Scholar, a Center for Civic Engagement Ambassador, and a Student Coordinator at UR Downtown. He began his involvement with the Race & Racism Project in the summer of 2017, as an A&S Summer Fellow. This post was written as a part of Digital Memory & the Archive, a course offered in Fall 2017.

On February 23, 1984, Collegian staff writer Ginny Yoder broke a story on sexual harassment plaguing the University of Richmond: “Obscene: Women get phone calls.” Residents in the Westhampton College dorms and University Forest Apartments had begun to receive obscene phone calls from unidentified callers. An epidemic of sexual harassment began spread from phone to phone around Westhampton College.

“It’s traumatic for the girls,” Campus Police Chief Robert C. Dillard told the Collegian. This trauma would haunt Westhampton College as obscene phone calls continued into the early 1990s.

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This Week in the Archive: Racist Symbols

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by Amanda Corbosiero

Amanda Corbosiero is a senior from Roseland, New Jersey, majoring in Journalism and minoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and Film Studies. In the process of curating and creating metadata for the project, Amanda feels that the project has opened up her eyes to parts of the school’s history that have gone unseen. This post was written as a part of Digital Memory & the Archive, a course offered in Fall 2017.

“Racist Symbols” is the title of the December 11, 1970 opinion piece in The Collegian. This article explores the racist symbols that members of the University of Richmond flaunted at sporting events by using the Confederate Flag and singing “Dixie.” The author said, “If UR is to erase its all-white ‘Southern’ image it is necessary to promote a cosmopolitan image without using the Confederate Flag or ‘Dixie’.” Though it is not labeled an opinion piece, statements were made by the author calling for the university to make a change, and it was found in the editorial section of the newspaper. It was made clear in this article that the author, as well as other students at UR, took offense in remnants from the old South.

I chose this piece because of the different layers that encompass this 172-word article. First off it is found in The Collegian, the University student newspaper, and it is critiquing the university’s culture. Also, it is from 1970, a couple of years after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 outlawing discrimination based on race, sex, or religion. The person who wrote this article–a university student–recognized the racist symbols that the Confederate Flag and Dixie held, yet the marching band paraded this flag around at games and the spectators sang “Dixie” without any recognition of the implications these symbols had on African Americans.

Richmond is the capital of the Confederacy therefore it is not rare to see monuments of Confederate leaders on Monument Ave, or back in 1970 having the Confederate Flag swaying at games. The question is, does UR reflect the social climate of the city of Richmond even though it is a private institution? The author of this article seemed to believe UR in the 1970s reflected an “all-white ‘Southern’ image.” In John Rueben Alley’s University of Richmond, a letter to President Boatwright who retired in 1946 said, “your record is written deep in the lives of thousands and in the very life of the South and the nation” (66). Therefore, we can extrapolate that UR did represent the social climate of the South at the period this article was written.

It is now 2017, 47 years after these “symbols of racism” were paraded around our campus. But even today symbols are all around this country and still found in the city of Richmond with monuments of Robert E. Lee and other confederate leaders. But this remembrance is different for everybody which is why Monument Avenue has caused mix controversy on whether the monuments are racist symbols or history. “Our understanding of collective or social memory will always hinge upon some recognition of the issue of whose memory.” (Barbie Zelizer, “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies,” 235). I believe that what it comes down to is that symbols are different for everybody and that is why controversy arises. Of course, racism can be associated with the Confederate Flag and the song “Dixie” for some, but for others historic facts can be associated with these symbols as well. Should the Confederate Monuments Stay of Go? states that we must think logically about what every symbol reflects both symbolically for one person and historically for another before we react off emotions. In 1970 when this Collegian article was released the Confederate Flag may have been seen as the history of Richmond to some and to others racism, however over time the symbol of the Confederate Flag has been accepted by administration as a racist representation of Richmond’s campus.  This was obviously not a widely accepted idea since after UR restrained playing “Dixie” at sporting events a letter by an alum showed his distaste for the decision since he viewed this song as deserving “a place in American music.” He also claimed that “Dixie” and the Confederate flag were not racist symbols “for right-minded people.” We can see how the social and political climate in the 1970s is a mirror of what we are facing now when it comes to the Confederacy and it all comes down to how people view symbols.

A Campus Divided

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During the Fall 2017 semester, 15 students took RHCS 412 Digital Memory & the Archive, a course exploring the intersections of history, memory, and archival research into UR history. The final project for this course was a team effort to use archival materials and other resources to craft a narrative related to the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Focusing on the experiences of black student athletes and other minority athletic groups in the 1970s and 1980s, Tegan Helms, Erin Tyra, and Caleb Ward created a podcast which includes an interview with Richmond College ’77 alum Rayford L. Harris, Jr. Using archival research, interviews, and their own experiences to piece together university history, the team found that the current state of the archive replicates structural inequalities. In their own words:

In Jarrett Drake’s speech, “Documenting Dissent in the Contemporary College Archive: Finding our Function within the Liberal Arts,” Drake challenges the functions of liberal arts institutions by arguing that “…the implicit function of the liberal arts college is to reproduce structural inequality.” We support Drake’s claim that liberal arts colleges perpetuate inequality through what is archived, who creates the archival material, and most importantly, what is left out of the archive. The Race & Racism Project at the University of Richmond exists to fill in the gaps of what is missing from the university’s archived history to help combat the structural inequality Drake argues exists. Although the University is now taking a new approach to put the pieces of history together, our sources still remain somewhat unreliable in revealing the entire scope of what really occurred during such crucial times. The university’s history will thus remain incomplete and inaccurate if we do not go back in time, critically analyze the third-party accounts, and hear from people like Rayford Harris and Tegan Helms about their experiences. The athletic culture at the University of Richmond has always and will continue to exist as a crucial component to the institution’s pride, reputation, and values, but the current records suggest otherwise, revealing the disconnect between archival sources on this campus.

Tegan Helms is a senior from Wilton, Connecticut, majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and minoring in Visual and Media Arts Practices. Erin Tyra is a senior from Santa Fe, New Mexico, double majoring in Psychology and Rhetoric and Communication Studies. Caleb Ward is a junior from Hampton, Virginia, and is majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies.

Click here to check out their podcast episode “A Campus Dividied” and accompanying post on memory.richmond.edu

This Week in the Archive: A History of Title IX Controversy

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by Katie Brennan

Kaitlin Brennan is a senior from Fairfield, Connecticut majoring in PPEL and Rhetoric & Communication Studies, contributing to the Race & Racism Project through the Fall 2017 RHCS 412 Digital Memory & the Archive course. The Race & Racism project has helped her think about race not only on the University’s campus but in the city of Richmond in general. She has become especially interested in how the University has talked about race and gender equality to the public, including to its students.

In this post, I will focus on the December 3, 1981 article titled “Title IX Controversy Sparks Mortar  Board Forum,” found in the University of Richmond newspaper, The Collegian. Written by staff writer Pat Everett, the article described a Mortar Board sponsored forum held to discuss gender equality in University athletics. Everett indicated that, as a result of a pending court decision on whether the University’s athletic programs violated the sex equality law, students received few concrete answers from administrators. William Leftwich, Vice President for student affairs and Title IX coordinator, as well as Elaine Yeates, chairman of the Board of Trustees’ Athletic Committee, hesitated to answer questions from female athletes. Additionally, the athletic director, Chuck Boone, and the women’s athletic director, Ruth Goehring, gave few explicit answers due to additional pending litigation between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

Despite this, administrators still maintained that progress had been made in the women’s athletic department since 1979, citing examples such as an increase in scholarships available to women and athletic success of female teams, particularly the women’s basketball team. Female athletes at the forum pressed administrators on issues of inequalities in athletic budgets, treatment of athletes with respect to travel, hotels, transportation, restaurants, and recruiting, as well as the number of available scholarships. Peg Hogan, coach of the women’s swim team, suggested that everyday issues, such as lack of heating in the Keller Hall locker room and availability of practice times, depicted obvious gender inequalities. However, Goering suggested that women were not always worse off than men and, in some ways, might even have been better off: “We have a law that says we must be treated fairly, the men don’t.”

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Censorship on College Campuses: The Mystery of The Collegian Sex Survey

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Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Karissa Lim is a senior at the University of Richmond double majoring in Psychology and Rhetoric & Communication Studies. She first worked with the Race & Racism at UR Project during the Fall 2016 semester in the class Digital Memory & the Archive. Her final project in Fall 2016 was a timeline outlining the history of Race and Education between 1946 and 1971 with team member Damian Hondares. She returned to the project as a 2017 A&S Summer Research Fellow, working with the project remotely from her hometown of Franklinville, New Jersey and traveling to neighboring Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to conduct site visits.

Karissa’s final project was a digital story entitled “Censorship on College Campuses: The Mystery of The Collegian Sex Survey.” A bit about the topic in her own words:

While creating metadata for the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project, Summer Research Fellow Karissa Lim (’18) stumbled upon a series of letters from 1968 that referenced a Collegian sex survey that had been censored. As a social science and humanities student, Karissa was curious about the content of the survey and set out to find the questions and results, hoping that these would provide more context and answers. Unfortunately, Karissa could not find the questions or results of the second half of the survey. This mystery raised more questions about freedom of speech and religious reputation on the University of Richmond’s campus.

View Karissa’s digital story and other projects via our digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

Spider of Color: Korean-American Representation at the University of Richmond

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Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Joshua Hasulchan Kim is from Colonial Heights, Virginia. He is a junior at the University of Richmond who is double majoring in Journalism and French. Joshua is involved in various clubs on campus: He is the co-president of Block Crew dance crew, the opinions editor for the Collegian newspaper, and is the Co-Director of Operations for the Multicultural Lounge Building Committee. Joshua joined the project as part of the Spring 2017 independent study (RHCS 387) and expanded upon this research with the support of an A&S Summer Research Fellowship during Summer 2017.

Josh approached his summer research with the goal of identifying Korean and Korean-American students throughout the University of Richmond’s history. His research took him down some unexpected routes. Read the various blog posts Josh contributed over the course of his research, including his archival discovery of the (possibly) first Korean-American student on campus, here. Josh’s his final project was a podcast–listen to it here: “Spider of Color: Korean-American Representation at the University of Richmond.”

Explore Josh’s podcast and other projects via the Race & Racism at UR Project’s digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

The Black Student Experience at the University of Richmond Main Campus (1970-1992)

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Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Jennifer Munnings is a sophomore, intending to major in Sociology with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Jennifer was new to the Race & Racism Project when she joined our Summer 2017 team. She created 74 individual digital items for our online collection, and contributed several blog posts available here. Her final project for the summer was an Omeka digital exhibit entitled “The Black Student Experience at the University of Richmond Main Campus (1970-1992).” A bit about the topic in her own words:

The University of Richmond’s black student integration experience is a tale of feet dragging by the University administration, threats of defunding from the federal government, and some resistance from the student body.  University of Richmond jumped through hurdles to avoid integration and maintain federal funding after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, complete with creating University College to cater to the “nontraditional” student. In 1968 the University of Richmond had its first full time black student enrolled in Richmond College, Barry Greene. Black students at UR had to fight to cultivate spaces for themselves where their opinions were acknowledged as legitimate, and their experiences were not discredited within the predominately white institution….Black students did not have spaces for themselves on campus where their feelings, opinions, and right to be students were not questioned. There were no black faculty or administrators on campus; the only black adult face students would have seen would have been the custodians or the gardeners. This exhibit will explore the acts of activism, intentional or not,  by black students through their experience at UR in their creation of clubs and organizations. Additionally, it will explore the tension that existed between black students and the administration in their attempt to be integrated into the campus.

Jennifer also joined Project Coordinator Dr. Nicole Maurantonio, Project Archivist Irina Rogova, Community Partner Free Egunfemi of Untold RVA, and fellow sophomore and A&S Summer Fellow Elizabeth Mejía-Ricart at the Imagining American Conference at UC Davis to present on the summer work on October 14, 2017.

Explore Jennifer’s exhibit and others via the project’s digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

Faculty Response to Institutional and National Change (1968-1973)

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Dominique “Dom” Harrington is a junior majoring in American Studies and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She worked with the Race & Racism project for the Fall 2016 seminar in the course Digital Memory & the Archive, where she developed an exhibit entitled “George Modlin’s Segregated University of Richmond” with team members Bailey Duplessie and Madeleine Jordan-Lord. This summer, she continued working with the project remotely from her hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana–she created some 60 individual digital items for our Omeka digital collection and contributed blog posts, including several site visit posts highlighting black history in Indianapolis.

Dom’s final project was an exhibit entitled “Faculty Response to Institutional and National Change (1968-1973).” A bit about the topic in her own words:

To date, the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond project has examined several key players to the university campus: college presidents, students, and staff.  However, a major group of folks that have the power to shape the culture of the school is missing: faculty and administrative staff.  To look at their role at the University, I chose a five-year window, 1968-1973, defined by change for both the university and the nation to explore exactly how these figures fit into this project. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, racially restrictive covenants became illegal in real estate, two Olympic athletes staged the iconic silent protest by raising their fists instead of placing their hands on their chests during a medal presentation ceremony, and Star Trek aired the country’s first televised interracial kiss.  A Virginia case, Green v. New Kent, made it all the up to the Supreme Court where the justices ruled that “freedom of choice” was not a legal response to Brown v. Board of Education as it was not a sufficient method to integrate the school system.  That same year, the University of Richmond enrolled its first residential black student, Barry Greene, on its main campus.  Barrier shattering changes filled the rest of these years as well, particularly with the rise of liberatory movements for women, black folks, and the LGBTQ community to the anti-war movements that swept the nation.

Explore Dom’s exhibit and others via the project’s digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

This Week in the Archive: Against the Norm–T. Eugene West and His Neighbor, The Nisei

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by Joshua Kim

(A Nisei is a person of Japanese descent born in the U.S. with immigrant parents. Nisei directly translates to “second generation” in Japanese.)

“At the outbreak of the war, 112,000 of these good people were taken from their homes, businesses, farms, schools, and churches and put into ten relocation camps throughout the midwest. Of these there were 70,000 American citizens by birth.” T. Eugene West, University of Richmond Class of 1927.

In his piece for the Richmond Alumni Bulletin, alum T. Eugene West passionately spoke on behalf of the Japanese American community and the horrors they faced during WWII, specifically the repercussions of Executive Order 9066.

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This Week in the Archive: 1964-1965 President’s Report

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By Jennifer Munnings

The 1964-1965 President’s Report highlights the first year of the Junior College’s establishment under University College. University College was formed in 1961, and the intention to develop the Junior College was expressed the same year by the Board of Trustees. Given that the Board of Trustees minutes are sealed indefinitely, the true intention behind the formation of University College and the Junior College is based on educated guesses, and published documents. The President’s Report report says on the formation of the Junior College: “This division was established to provide a two-year daytime liberal arts program for Richmond-area students who could not enroll in Richmond and Westhampton Colleges.”  Historical context suggests that part of the reason University College and subsequently the Junior College were instituted was as a means to continue to receive federal funding without integrating the main campus.

Although the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education was targeted at public institutions, private universities, like University of Richmond, that resisted integration were in danger of losing funding and being penalized. The University’s failure to desegregate resulted in the centering of the T. C. Williams School of Law by the Association of American Law Schools. On June 8th 1964 Walter Carpenter became the first black man to graduate from University College although University of Richmond had not announced that it would integrate until that same semester. There were also twelve black students whose names are unknown that were enrolled in night courses. So, what prompted the public announcement of its integration? And, who are the populations that Richmond and Westhampton College cannot serve?

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