THE OLD GUARD’S IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY

A stalwart member of Howard University’s “Old Guard” once declared that even a full professor is not supposed to be engaged in research “on Howard’s time.” According to this idea of the university, the faculty are here to teach, teach, teach disadvantaged African American students. Are not the three pillars of the academic’s profession research, teaching, and service? Isn’t instruction at the tertiary level inextricably tied to research and service?

That same stalwart Old Guard HBCU administrator also was once heard to proclaimed, “Harvard leads [not Howard]”!—Whatever about the “Leadership for America and the Global Community” slogan—

It appears that the Old Guard has cunningly confirmed its authority by selecting for the University’s top “leadership” positions individuals who are not sufficiently familiar with all of the subtle dynamics of the institution’s history, a history inextricably entwined with the specific African American Black experience. Thus the University has officially taken the position that faculty, even full professors, are duty bound to devote almost 100 percent of their efforts to teaching disadvantaged African American students; research is not to be undertaken “on Howard’s time.”