WASHINGTON
The National Congress of Black Faculty met here last
month for their twelfth annual conference to discuss a host of topics
that ranged from affirmative action’s impact on Black access to higher
education, to the role of Black scholars in shaping public policy, to
the importance of computer literacy.
According to the organization’s president, Dr. Barbara Murray,
nearly fifty Black faculty members from institutions around the country
attended the four-day conference in order to collaborate “on issues
that challenge our survival in higher education.”
Keynote speaker Dr. Robert Hill, director of the Institute for
Urban Research at Morgan State University, urged the conference members
to take an active role in research, noting that Black researchers have
been sluggish in recent years.
“This group needs to be an advocate for positive research. Most of
the research monies don’t go to us, but they’re going to research on us
— welfare, homelessness, all these issues, they’re us,” he said.
“Funding agencies do not recognize that minority researchers tend to
ask different questions of the same data.”
Citing Black America’s outcry over what is perceived as poorly used
census data, Hill warned that it’s crucial that Black scholars play
more of a role in research that affects policy issues.
“People say that Blacks are distrustful of research. We’re
distrustful of exploitative research,” he said. “We need research more
than anyone else. But we want to be able to be more in control of it
and we want to be able to define the issue. Because unless we define
the issues, we’ll keep getting what we’re getting now.”
