Well, I am Arvarh E. Strickland. I am now professor emeritus of history. I came as a professor of history in 1969. That was a very exciting time, both in the nation and on campuses. The generation of students that we had then were those who thought that they could correct all the ills of the world — and they were very excited — and a great group of students to teach.
Well, of course, when I came I was not aware that I was the only African-American faculty member. I figured in a university of this size there had to be some other African-American faculty people stuck around somewhere. Well I found that that was not the case. One of the roles I tried to play was to attract other African-American members to the faculty, and as other departments, particularly in the College of Arts and Science, decided that they wanted to add an African-American faculty member, they would usually call upon me to help, and particularly when they had candidates coming they would want me to talk to the person or persons and tell them what a great place this is to work.
I had found that Columbia was the type of place that we wanted to live if we moved from Chicago, and we were very anxious, in a sense, to move from Chicago. We had two young boys, and Chicago was not a great place at that time for trying to rear sons and keep them out of gangs and all of that. And we wanted a place somewhat like the place where we lived in Mississippi — where people knew each other and you knew what your children were doing, and there were things for them to do.
I knew that there was racism, there was bigotry in Columbia, but fortunately for me and my family we were never overtly — we never overtly encountered any of this. I did encounter, as time went by, things within the University that made me quite uncomfortable, but I knew that those things existed wherever I would go and that's what most African-American people were confronting. And so what I did was to stay here and try to fight that to see that other African-Americans who came on the faculty or as staff would not have to re-fight those battles.
Well one of my great experiences in teaching was when this television series based upon Alex Haley's book Roots was aired, and I decided it would be great if we, like some other universities, offered this as a course.
And I thought it would be great if we could open that up to community and other people. My wife took this course at the time, and that was the source of the rumor that spread that I had flunked my wife. I really didn’t do that, but it was a good rumor because I didn't correct it. And students would pass around the word that "You know he flunked his wife and he flunked his son," who took a course from me later.
Neither one of them flunked, but I never did try to correct that, so students really did kind of decide whether they wanted to come to my course and work hard or not. So usually that meant that they kind of screened themselves.
One of the greatest things to me about the naming of this building in my honor was the fact that this was student-generated. You know, it's good to be applauded by your colleagues and faculty members, but when students, in some way, seem to understand what you stood for as a teacher or professor, and they are willing to recognize you for that, that really makes you feel good. And then the students who have responded to me now that they have been out for years say that what they now appreciate is the fact that there was — that I expected a good deal from them.