By Igor Drobyshev, Staff Reporter
Among the roughly 100 bronze busts at the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, there are only two blacks and no Hispanics or Asians.
The hall is located on the campus of the mostly nonwhite Bronx Community College, but the students there don't feel strongly about the hall's lack of diversity -- even as multicultural movements at other schools are expanding rapidly.
"I think it's fair," said Noel James, an engineering science freshman, who is black, "because most of the population is white. Also, but for those white Americans, America wouldn't have been what it is."
When approached for comment, white students were reluctant to talk. They said they don't care about the Hall of Fame and said they don't have problems studying in this multi-ethnic community.
While racial controversies on mostly white campuses have led administrators to require that students take diversity workshops, such programs aren't needed at the borough college because the community is so diverse, said Tullio Z. Nieman, director of student activities.
Nieman, who worked on mostly white campuses before coming to the borough school, said he knows how nonwhite students feel on predominantly white campuses. "You have to wake up every day and deal with that factor," he said. "Whereas here you know how to deal with it, because you're with the same group."
While some students and teachers attribute recent curriculum changes to the administration's desire to appeal to the diverse student body, others say the changes are due to budget-cutting pressures.
Courses dedicated to Caribbean and black studies have been introduced. A yearlong European history course covering ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary times has been collapsed into a one-semester world history course which covers only the post-world war II period.
According to Nieman, such changes are reasonable, because, "We should practice the politics of inclusion."
Wallace Sokolsky, a history instructor, added that if the college wants to "lure the student's interest, we have to start in part from his background."
Chris Thornton, editor-in-chief of the student paper, ®MDUL¯Communicator®MDNM¯, said the new courses haven't replaced the study of Western civilization. "Basically, every department has been hit," he said.
Despite these changes, the Hall of Fame remains the same. "You cannot reconstruct history," said Sokolsky.
The process of selecting and inducting new candidates for immortality has been delayed because the Hall of Fame is out of money and its colonnade is short of space. The last bust installed, that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was erected in July 1993.
But students feel like making nominations anyway.
"Martin Luther King should be there most definitely," said Tanisha Favours, a liberal arts student.
"Mandela," added Juan Medina of the same department, though he withdrew the name of the South African leader when he learned that only Americans are eligible for the Hall of Fame.
Several students were stumped when asked to nominate a famous Hispanic person. Then, in a half-whisper, Favours suggested, "Fidel Castro," hastily adding with laughter, "No, it's a corny joke!"