When Ohio State University named its standout Black cultural center after the civil rights activist, professor and vice provost who championed such a place, it was commemorating what Dr. Frank W. Hale Jr. stood for. He promoted academic rigor, those who knew him say. He was a lover of art and oratory. He spotlighted the hallmark differences among people, but also their common humanity. He believed every person specialized in something and that such specialties should never be ignored.
“He’d say, ‘Have you seen how well so-and-so polished such-and-such floor.’ And he’d say it with the same energy and respect as he would about someone who had just published their third or fourth book,” said Dr. Valerie Lee, a Hale protégé and OSU’s vice provost for diversity and inclusion.
“In a lot of cases,” added Lache´ Roach, a senior sociology major, “with someone so important, you’d think he’d walk right past. But he took time to say hello, ask us how our days went … and it wasn’t this scripted thing, because he was so genuine. He made us love him without even trying.”
Roach is one of 100 students employed at the 20,000-square-foot center named for Hale in 1988. Hale is credited with helping OSU graduate more Black Ph.D.s than any other U.S. college during the 1970s. During a 24-year tenure there, he had been an associate dean of OSU’s graduate school and graduate fellowship committee chair, vice provost for minority affairs and special assistant to the president. Hale subsequently became a professor emeritus at OSU, venturing regularly to the campus — despite a battle with pancreatic cancer — until a few months before his death when doctors advised him to rest at home instead.
The Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center operates seven days a week and, by the most recent count, receives roughly 120,000 visitors and tourists annually. Around early 2013, the Hale Center is slated to move into even larger quarters on the bottom two floors of Enarson Hall, OSU’s first student union, a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
A Place All its Own
The Hale Center’s rarity among student centers initially launched for a certain constituency owes its uniqueness to its blend of cultural aesthetics and in-center academic instruction. Replacing what then was OSU’s Black Cultural Center, the Hale Black Cultural Center is outfitted with the works of internationally-known artists such as Paul Goodnight and Elizabeth Catlett, sculptures from the West African Ife tradition and pieces from other genres and regions of the world and Ohio. Women’s studies, history, comparative politics, African-American studies, Swahili and art are among its 28 course offerings. Upward Bound, Hispanic Student Services, Student Alumni Council and dozens of community groups also use the space, which includes two state-of-the art computer labs, research and reading rooms, a tutorial lab and the MLK Lounge that, interchangeably, also is a conference room and theater for staged events.
