Kicking off the University's celebration of Black History Month, African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner delivered a speech detailing the "state of African-American affairs" at the University last night in the Rotunda Dome Room.
The speech, which lasted slightly under an hour and included an audience question and answer session, detailed the progress the University has made in improving its academic and social environment for black students and the challenges that still lie ahead.
Sylvia V. Terry, associate dean in the office of African-American affairs, opened the program with a description of Turner and the work he has done at the University since his arrival in 1988.
"Where he has gone, success has followed," Terry said. "He constantly reminds us as an institution of what is right, what is moral, what is just. He has the strength to speak the truth and the courage to stand behind what he says."
Turner began his address by telling listeners how far African Americans have come at the University because of the support the OAAA has provided.
It has been "a journey of advocacy, advocacy for African-American students to become a viable part of an institution that their ancestors helped build, but they could not attend," he said. Black "students in the early days did not leave because of bad grades -- they left because they did not find support."
Turner expressed his satisfaction with the University's 87 percent graduation rate for black students -- the highest at any public university -- and described several of the initiatives to aid black students further developed or begun by his office in the last academic year.
Among the accomplishments he spoke of were "raising the bar initiative," developed to provide expanded academic support for black students, outreach activities by members of his office in the Charlottesville community and $120,000 of renovations to the OAAA and Luther P. Jackson Black Cultural Center.
Still, Turner did not shy away from expressing his concern over incidents that he said expressed racial intolerance on Grounds last year.
"Atrocious acts of racial insensitivity, from newspaper coverage to a manager using the 'n-word' to violence against a Student Council candidate, left the University reeling," he said.
A dearth of black faculty and administrators was another topic of concern Turner raised.
"I'm tired of going to the fourth and fifth floors of Cabell Hall and seeing nobody that looks like me," he said. "I'm tired of going to Madison Hall and seeing nobody that looks like me."
University Provost Gene Block praised Turner for his leadership and maintenance of a "magnificent organization that is truly inspirational."
Block also read a letter from University President John T. Casteen, III, who was unable to attend the address.
The OAAA is "a locust of energy, inspiration and support for the University's increasingly vital African-American community," the statement said.
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