Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda By the late 1960s, integration was becoming a major federal initiative. President Johnson’s Executive Order of 1965, spelling out Affirmative Action, mandated that no institution could discriminate based on “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, Continue reading Clash of Cultures: An Introduction to Integration at Madison
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda While the first African-Americans were accepted during G. Tyler Miller’s presidency, it was Ronald E. Carrier, 4th president at Madison College, who truly raised the issue of diversity, and thus integration, to its current level of Continue reading Carrier’s Influence on Campus Diversity
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda It is important to understand how significant a role Southern culture and history played on the campus of Madison College. Students took their history classes in Jackson Hall, named after the Confederate general “Stonewall” Jackson. Jackson Continue reading Ushering in the New Amid Celebrations of the Past
Post by: Alexandra Kolleda As mentioned in the introduction, town-gown relations between Madison College and the city of Harrisonburg were not very genial in the 1970s. In regards to the atmosphere of student protest that pervaded the entire nation, Harrisonburg Continue reading Town-Gown Relations
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda The first African-Americans were accepted at Madison College in 1966, and when Carrier took office as president in 1971, he increased efforts to diversify the population on campus (Jones, 168). In 1973, an Affirmative Action plan Continue reading Mandated or Voluntary Integration?
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda Enforcement of Affirmative Action began only after President Johnson’s Executive Order in 1965 (Hasday, 111). It’s implementation, however, was accompanied by opposition from the beginning, not simply after the University of California v. Bakke case in 1978 Continue reading That Awkward Adjustment Period
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda On December 10, 1992, The Breeze, Madison’s student newspaper, announced that a former minor would be reconsidered for the next year’s course catalog. That minor, African-American studies, had originally been provided in 1980; however, it had faded away Continue reading But What About Class?
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda After the 1978 Supreme Court decision in University of California v. Bakke, Affirmative Action received significant backlash from the public. Whites were becoming frustrated with what they called “reverse discrimination” (Schulman, 69-70). They feared that white Continue reading Massive Resistance or Massive Representation?
Post Author: Alexandra Kolleda The Madison College student newspaper, The Breeze, is one of the best sources of student perceptions on the integration of their campus. It is significant to mention that The Breeze and its writers prided themselves on being Continue reading The Breeze Presents Mixed View of Integration
The integration of Madison College certainly did not go off without a hitch; however, it appears as if the Southern, Conservative culture was largely countered by a more Liberal, college environment historically geared towards educating women. This allowed integration to Continue reading Weighing the Facts
