3 BGLO Frats move into the Kappa Alpha Order Fraternity House

[CrimsonTide4]

Changes at Vanderbilt part of push to boost diversity

By MICHAEL CASS
Staff Writer


ERIC PARSONS / STAFF
Three African-American fraternities have moved into the house owned by Kappa Alpha Order, suspended by its national headquarters. From left are Alpha Phi Alpha President Bichar Myrtil, Phi Beta Sigma Treasurer Eliq Watson and Vice President Jelani Teamer, and Alpha Phi Alpha education Chairman Robert Boxie, director of intake Sebastine Ujereh and Vice President Demetrius Walker. Omega Psi Phi is the third fraternity.

At about the same time it was deciding to remove the word ''Confederate'' from the name of a residence hall, Vanderbilt University was moving three small, African-American fraternities into a house on its Greek Row for the first time.

The university could not have planned that the house would be the one belonging to Kappa Alpha Order, a fraternity suspended by its national headquarters in February for hazing prospective members. In fact, Vanderbilt first offered the house to Delta Gamma, a predominantly white sorority, said David Williams, the university's vice chancellor for student life and general counsel.

The irony is that KA, while not calling for a return to the days of slavery, is known for its reverence for the Old South and Confederate ideals of Southern honor and gentlemanliness.

That fact isn't lost on some of the young black men living in the KA house until the chapter returns to campus in 2004.

''Out of all the houses we could have possibly obtained, I think this is the last one we ever thought of,'' Alpha Phi Alpha Vice President Demetrius Walker, a junior economics major from New York, said while sitting in his room in the house on 24th Avenue South.

''I would never even have expected to be in this house.''

Even if the university was not looking to dispense any poetic justice, the move, combined with the recent decision to delete ''Confederate'' from Confederate Memorial Hall, seemed to send a message that Vanderbilt is working to shed its lily-white, country-club image.

Vanderbilt officials say that is, in fact, what they want to do. They are trying to make the university more welcoming to and inclusive of African-Americans and members of other minority groups, and they stress that they have been trying to do it for a lot, lot longer than a few weeks.

Political correctness or moral correctness?

It's something a first-class university should be doing, they say, and also something that's necessary to stay competitive. But it isn't easy, and there's a long way to go, as Vanderbilt's percentages of minority students and faculty demonstrate. The student body and faculty are still more than 80% white.

''There are no quotas,'' Chancellor Gordon Gee said. ''But we're pressing to have the most talented people come and join us, black and white.''

Yet that is happening at a great cost to history, members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy say. The UDC's Tennessee division helped George Peabody College for Teachers, which merged with Vanderbilt in 1979, build Confederate Memorial Hall almost 70 years ago.

UDC members say Vanderbilt's decision to drop the key word is an affront to the men who died fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The organization, which might take legal action, says the war was about states' rights and economic issues, not preserving slavery.

''They made it clear they're trying to build a world-class university, and they don't think the word 'Confederate' belongs in that world, I guess,'' Bob Notestine, the group's attorney, said after he and four UDC members met with Gee, Williams and Michael Schoenfeld, Vanderbilt's vice chancellor for public affairs, on Thursday.

Gee said charges that Vanderbilt is rewriting history simply to keep various groups of people from feeling offended — charges made by UDC members, by students in Vanderbilt Hustler editorials and by dozens of Tennessean readers who wrote to the newspaper — are off-target.

''This is not a matter of political correctness,'' Gee said. ''It's a matter of moral correctness. … Vanderbilt was established to heal the rifts between North and South, not to exacerbate them.

''The word 'Confederate' can stand for a number of things. Whether we like it or not … it has taken on a very clear meaning of a vestige of our history none of us are proud of, and that is slavery.''

Williams said his office's efforts to find housing for the three African-American fraternities — Alpha Phi Alpha, Phi Beta Sigma and Omega Psi Phi — were another example of trying to help students feel comfortable. It is one of the first times any non-historically black institution has provided housing for predominantly black Greek organizations, and Williams said he is working to find long-term housing for those groups, each of which has fewer than 10 members.

Part of the idea is that making students feel comfortable will make them more likely to stay — and to encourage other students to join them at Vanderbilt.

''Anytime you make a decision, I guess you can be criticized as being politically correct or incorrect,'' Williams said.

''I see it as looking at groups of people and saying, 'We asked you in some way, shape or manner to be part of our family. Now we need to help you do that.' ''

The university also recently opened the Schulman Center for Jewish Life, which could help Gee's somewhat controversial strategy of recruiting more Jewish students, who tend to score better on the SAT college entrance exam than most students. The facility is celebrating its opening with events throughout this week and will be dedicated next Sunday.

An ongoing effort

Schoenfeld said Vanderbilt has been working to represent the larger world since it integrated — after some embarrassing decisions to keep black students out — about 40 years ago.

''There's nothing new about wanting Vanderbilt University to be seen as, and to be in reality, a university where all points of view are not only tolerated, but welcomed and embraced,'' he said. ''It's part of an ongoing effort that goes back decades. We were segregated until the early '60s. That's an uncomfortable fact, and it's one we've moved beyond.''

''I don't see a smidgen of racism at Vanderbilt,'' trustee Nelson Andrews, a Nashville businessman, said Thursday. ''It never comes up as an issue on the (Board of Trust) because we don't think about it. We crossed that Rubicon a long time ago.''

Walker, the Alpha Phi Alpha vice president, said he's felt welcome since he arrived on campus for a recruitment weekend for black and Hispanic students in March 2000. He attended an event put on by Alpha Phi Alpha, attended classes and came away liking the university's size.

''Before I came, I said, 'I'm not going to that conservative school,' '' said Walker, 20. ''Then I visited, and it was really a different story. It still wasn't as diverse as I thought it was going to be, but it was still a welcoming environment.''

A couple of years later, Walker and his fraternity brothers held a party at their new house that drew about 1,000 people of all colors, including Gee, who said he ''had a great time.'' The fraternity was expecting an even bigger crowd for a party scheduled for last night.

Room for improvement

Yet numbers and actions show Vanderbilt still can do much better. African-Americans and members of other minority groups make up less than 20% of the student body and faculty (and 26% of the rest of the staff), and racist graffiti were painted in some dormitory facilities at least six times last spring, prompting student-led discussions of hate, tolerance and unity.

Andrews said Vanderbilt needs to become more diverse to improve.

''It's something that lets you get better students, faculty and administrators,'' he said. ''And if you get better in those three areas, you're going to have a better university. …

''If faculty don't come because they think we're behind the times — or for whatever reason — then we lose out.''

Andrews and others said former chancellors Alexander Heard and Joe B. Wyatt worked hard to make Vanderbilt more diverse from 1963 to 2000. Andrews said the pace has picked up under Gee, who frequently sponsors and leads activities to help both white and minority students feel at home. He took about 200 students to see the movie Sweet Home Alabama on Wednesday night.

''He really wants students to have a good experience,'' Andrews said. ''So anything that's disruptive to them, he takes a look at.''

Walker said Alpha Phi Alpha is elated to have a place of its own after 27 years at Vanderbilt. The fraternity only has six members, and it wants to grow. But it no longer has to rent a club off campus for $500 when it wants to have a party. The group can play host to community service events, as well, such as a ''goat drive'' to raise money to donate goats to poor families in Uganda.

''It's been a long time coming,'' Walker said. ''It's about time we had some sort of space.''

Michael Cass can be reached at mcass@tennessean.com or 259-8838.