Letters to the Editor: Black Student Reflections

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Letters to the Editor
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Fellow Guilford Students:
Often, because of a "Desire
to intimately infract with
nature" or just plain laziness,
we disregard sidewalks and
tread on the grass. 'At first,
such shortcuts seem harmless;
today, however, our campus
lawn bears scars of abuse.
Take, for instance, the Dirt|
Road that has formed
between Founders walkway
and Duke Memorial.
Okay. We have three
alternatives. One, to put up
more sidewalks where these
paths currently exist Two,
to rope off the grounds or
build hedges across lawns on
campus. Or three, to take rt
upon ourselves to avoid walking on the grass. We assume
that the last alternative would
be the most practical. Further,
it would preserve the grounds
and keep them more "natural."
The grass is disappearing;
it is obliterated and carried
into the Library, Archdale,
Founders, Milner, and just
about every other building on
campus. Also, when it rains,
the dirt that becomes mud is
tracked onto floors, ceilings,
whatever.
Obviously, we'll have to do
something sooner or later.
Let's do it now.
The Community Senate
To the Editor
I have been contemplating
writing this letter for a long
time. Since my days at Guilford are limited I feel the time
is now or never to express
some of my personal concerns
and ideas about my four years
at Guilford. Before proceeding
however let me state that the
following comments arel
editorial. They are based on
my own personal feelings and
experiences during my stay at
Guilford College. It is imperative that the readers remember
that what is stated in this
article is based only on my
feelings as an individual Black
student, although the particulars may have been experienced
by others.
When I first arrived at
Guilford College in August of
1973 and saw the campus,
I told my father to take me
back home. I said this not
out of dislike for the way
the campus looked, but I was
simply expressing my fear of
the unknown. I knew very
little about Guilford except
that it was located in Greensboro, N.C, the place with the
coliseum. My knowledge
about the school was limited
to what my high school
counselor had told  me.     I
chose Guilford for basically
two reasons. The first one
was that I had a close
relationship with my counselor
and trusted her recommendation. The second reason
being that out of 7 colleges
I applied^to, Guilford gave me
the most financial aid. So these
two factors were the primary
reasons I came to Guilford. To
this day I can remember my
high school counselor saying,
"Alicia, Guiford is a good
school, the people there are
very friendly and at this
school you won't be a computer number, but you will be
known as Alicia Chandler."
t knew Guilford was
predominantly white, but
I didn't realize how few
number of Blacks it had enrolled here. The fact that there
were so few Blacks at this
school made my adjustment
to college life even more
difficult. After going to
practically all black public
schools in a predominantly
black city, (Washington, D.C.),
you better believe it was very
difficult at first for me to
adjust to being the only Black
person in a classroom, living
with a white roomate, having
all white instructors and
finally interacting with so few '
number of Black students. It
is not to be misconstrued that
this problem of adjustment
has been resolved because it
is just that this situation is
a little less threatening than
it was four years ago. Because *
of this very threatening
situation and my fears I took
a very passive role in every
aspect of college life
during my first semester.
This passiveness subsided
especially in the course BHTC.
Unlike Guilford's
s required curriculum today it
was required that all freshmen
women take BHTC their first
two semesters in school. I
hated this course and my hate-
red for BHTC caused me to
get up the nerve to talk to
my professor. I can remember telling him how much
I hated this course, its readings
and how I felt that the course
was very irrelevant. Further I
told him how I felt that the
course was white-oriented and
one black authored book,
Autobiography of Malcolm X,
didn't make the course applicable to me as a Black person.
My anger was intensified when
the class finally began dis-
cussing Malcolm X and I was
asked to give some insight as
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