Where's the Change?

Black Faculty and Professional Staff advise Chancellor Poulton.

Black progress in 1978.

A recruitment form indicating how many minority applicants were considered for a job opening at NCSU.

In 1983, nine years after the first Affirmative Action Plan was submitted, NC State turned in a progress report to the HEW identifying the composition of the university's workforce and the campus workspaces occupied by minority employees. The progress report indicated black employees did indeed occupy more of the campus’s workspaces, but their representation was still incredibly low compared to the overall number of positions available at the university.

NC State added seven black administrators to positions that were previously all-white. 33 black professors were on the tenure track, while another seven were non-tenured. Three schools that previously employed an all-white faculty - the Schools of Education, Engineering, and Textiles - each had at least two tenured black professors on staff. Despite some of the gains in hiring black faculty, the percentages of black teachers remained dismal. The 33 tenured professors represented only 2.7 percent of NC State’s total faculty positions.[1]

Black employees in academic professional positions barely increased from 26 in 1973 to only 35 in 1983. Secretarial and clerical positions showed the most progress over the nine year period. By 1983, 180 black employees, or about 18 percent of the total, worked in these positions. The most striking statistic, however, is the total number of black workers still employed in low-skilled positions. In 1983, 480 black employees worked in service maintenance, representing 80 percent of the total service maintenance workforce.[2] NC State’s slow and hesitant changes in hiring, recruiting, and employment practices still forced a vast number of the university’s black employees into the lower echelons of the campus’s workspaces.

The fight for equal workspace was still a major priority for many of the university’s black workers, and the black faculty and professional staff in particular continued to push for institutional changes. An organization named Black Faculty and Professional Staff continued to advise university administration on the glaring inequalities faced by black employees. Their meetings often consisted of discussions on how to increase the number of black faculty and the role of university administration in hiring practices.[3] The group regularly provided the chancellor and other administrators with recommendations on the best ways to combat racism and increase black representation on campus.[4] The group often worked across class lines, bringing problems faced by black non-academic workers to the administration's attention and campaigning on their behalf. Like the Physical Plant employees in 1969, the black faculty and staff banded together to continue the fight for equal workspace on NC State’s campus throughout the 1980s.