AWA R D-W INNING CENTR A LR ECOR DER .COM Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Central Connecticut State University
Volume 108 No. 18
Alabama Reverend Delivers Fiery Sermon To CCSU Community kassondra granata the recorder
Reverend Arthur Price Jr. visited Connecticut for the first time Thursday to speak at a civil rights lecture at CCSU. Price’s sermon pertained to the role of religion, and Christianity’s dominant role for African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. The Speaker Series from the Civil Rights Movement Project at CCSU was created by African American studies Professor Stephen Balkaran, who also brought Police Chief A.C Roper to CCSU in the fall. “The black church has been the flame bearer of the civil rights movement since the beginning,” Balkaran said, introducing Price. “Christianity has played a prominent role in establishing a moral conscious for the civil rights of blacks in America. There were many individual and collective efforts contributed to freedoms that we now enjoy as African Americans, but few institutions provided the united voice echoed by that of the black church.” Price has been a pastor for thirteen years and arrived at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. in 2002. The church is known as a historical monument due to the place that it held during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It was used as a meeting ground for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shutterworth during the prime years of the movement. On September 15, 1963, The Ku Klux Klan bombed the church, killing four young girls. That event created a domino effect and resulted in many other civil rights actions well-known to history. “I want to engage us in the struggle and remind us that if we never had these ancestors in the past, we would have never had our rights that we have today, I think that’s so important,” Price said. “Too often we forget about those who brought us through history and we need to remember who has worked a mighty long way to get us here.” Price spoke on the dilemma African Americans went through during the 1960s, and when they had finally decided that “enough was enough.” “There comes a time in our lives when it is time to say we have to move on, we have to stop making excuses, we have to stop allowing our hardships hurt us and we need to say it is time to move to the other side,” said Price. “We are usually afraid to push the envelope. In the 1960’s, the black church said ‘we are going to hold white America accountable’ because they said all of this was so.” CCSU President Jack Miller
said that African Americans from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church played a much more important role during the civil rights movement than just spreading their faith. “It’s far more than just a religious perspective, which is absolutely important. It has a much bigger and broader social influence,” Miller said. “The African American church was a social organization, a home for many civil rights workers and people of the past as well as the current, they had a very pervasive influence.” Price said that because the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church has the civil rights movement attached to its history, it is hard to juggle how to keep the community a functioning congregation rather than a tourist attraction. “We called the challenge, ‘bridging the ministry;’ we have had over 90,000 visitors touring the church,” Price said. “During the 1960’s the church was dying. When I got there in 2002 we only had 70 members as opposed to over 800 members in the 1960’s. Now we have over 400 members. [Tourists] only saw it as an extension to the civil rights museum across the street, but we are trying to keep it a ministry.”
kenny Barto | tHe recorder
Reverend Arthur Price, Jr. of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. presented a fiery speech to CCSU students. He also answered questions from students and faculty.
Should The UPBC’s Constitution Be Called Into Question? justin Muszynski the recorder
After the recent matter of “transparency” in the Athletics Department was supported in the Faculty Senate and found to be an unpopular topic in the University Planning and Budget Committee it must be explored as to whether or not there’s an issue in the difference in views between the two committees. Guy Crundwell, a member of the UPBC, says this is a perfect example of why the committee isn’t doing what it was designed to. “It’s supposed to represent the voice of the faculty in an advisory capacity related to planning and budget but the problem is with the way the UPBC is set up, with an equal amount of administrators and faculty. Those administrators are supposed to be there as resources but not to be voting members,” said Crundwell. David Blitz, the former chair of the UPBC, recalls the process by which administrators gained voting privileges, and says it was more of a “courtesy” to them. If they were going to be present at the meetings then they might as well play a larger role. At a UPBC meeting last semester, Crundwell put forth five motions relating to the Athletic Department’s finances and possible solutions
that involved an ad-hoc committee budgeting and planning process public assessing their budget and finding cost and transparent.” Crundwell also says that some cutting measure that could be taken. However, only one of the five motions administrators have multiple avenues to was passed after Crundwell took get their priorities to the forefront. “I look at them crafting the voice the other four off the table because of the obvious negative feelings the of the faculty as two bites at the apple, because they get it before the senate committee had towards them. But when the Faculty Senate votes on it and then they can bend the got wind of this issue they seemed ear of the president individually, I can’t,” rather intrigued by it; So much so that said Crundwell. “I have to put something through they invited the shared Cr undwel l, “They’re in a tenuous governance P a u l Schlickmann, situation, if the provost r o u t e , through the Athletics D i r e c t o r , wants something passed and the faculty. The provost and another member of they’re relying on them for can put it the UPBC to a an evaluation it gets kind of through the faculty or future meeting give it to the where they sticky,” president.” will conduct a Jason more in depth Jo n e s , -Guy Crundwell discussion. President of “I wasn’t the CCSU there for the discussion, but I don’t understand why chapter of the American Association of they didn’t approve that especially if University Professors, says it’s a bigger it seemed to be a matter of interest to question involving ethics when looking at least some of the committee,” said at the UPBC’s arrangement compared Blitz referring to the UPBC. “Why the to that of the Senate’s. “In general there’s a principle that UPBC wouldn’t want to do that is a mystery to me, I don’t quite understand the Senate committees should be it because it’s just information. One faculty committees and the people part of the UPBC is to make the who propose the budget should not
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then have the opportunity to vote on whether the budget is acceptable to the faculty,” said Jones. Jones also says that the administrators’ presence can have an impact on whether or not members will speak out against something that they are in favor of. “I do believe that it constrains the speech of some senators and of some members of the committee, I don’t think there’s any question about that,” said Jones. “There are even members of the Senate who don’t feel comfortable taking stances that strongly contradict those of their dean or the provost.” He adds that members of the AAUP have language written in their contract about academic freedom and some still feel “anxious” about opposing the beliefs of the administrators. But he imagines it must be even more complicated for State University Organization of Administrative Faculty who doesn’t have the luxury of academic freedom. “They’re in a tenuous situation, if the provost wants something passed and they’re relying on them for an evaluation it gets kind of sticky,” said Crundwell. “It’s a weird committee. I’m not saying it’s happening but there is potential for a conflict of interest.”