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Past and present collide in civil rights panel
A panel and photo archive on race relations address how present concerns parallel the '60s
by Allie Grasgreen | News Reporter
There was more to the 1960s than great music and psychedelia. A student-faculty panel, in conjunction with a library archival photo exhibit, will illuminate the era's historic civil rights movement for the University community.
University senior Daniel Keller assembled a Knight Library exhibit, on display since week two of spring term, entitled "Civil Rights at the University of Oregon: Past and Present." On Thursday, the exhibit will be extended into a panel discussion including members of the faculty, administration and student body. Keller will moderate the discussion.
The discussion is meant not only to reflect on the past University environment, but also to explore contemporary campus racial relations. The timely scheduling of the panel coincides with the Diversity Plan's progress toward implementation.
The Diversity Plan in fact directly addresses one 1968 occurrence Keller encountered while sifting through the library archives for photographs: a number of students of the Black Student Union called for a more ethnically heterogeneous faculty to address diversity issues on campus.
Keller said he hopes the exhibit and panel will assist the Diversity Plan's progress, because while apparent that campus social progress has been made because of the plan, in a lot of ways outlooks have remained static.
"The Diversity Plan says things that people were saying 30 or 40 years ago," Keller said. "That was the real thrust of the exhibit. (To) take some really interesting historical info and relate it to the University's current efforts with the Diversity Plan."
"The more we can talk about it and move it from being sort of a stigmatized issue, the better off we are," Keller said.
The discussion, which features three faculty who worked at the University during the civil rights movement, will be a useful event in tracking progress the University has made during the last 40 years. While preparing the exhibit and in the time since, Keller has found differences as well as similarities in the campus environment.
University senior Daniel Keller assembled a Knight Library exhibit, on display since week two of spring term, entitled "Civil Rights at the University of Oregon: Past and Present." On Thursday, the exhibit will be extended into a panel discussion including members of the faculty, administration and student body. Keller will moderate the discussion.
The discussion is meant not only to reflect on the past University environment, but also to explore contemporary campus racial relations. The timely scheduling of the panel coincides with the Diversity Plan's progress toward implementation.
The Diversity Plan in fact directly addresses one 1968 occurrence Keller encountered while sifting through the library archives for photographs: a number of students of the Black Student Union called for a more ethnically heterogeneous faculty to address diversity issues on campus.
Keller said he hopes the exhibit and panel will assist the Diversity Plan's progress, because while apparent that campus social progress has been made because of the plan, in a lot of ways outlooks have remained static.
"The Diversity Plan says things that people were saying 30 or 40 years ago," Keller said. "That was the real thrust of the exhibit. (To) take some really interesting historical info and relate it to the University's current efforts with the Diversity Plan."
"The more we can talk about it and move it from being sort of a stigmatized issue, the better off we are," Keller said.
The discussion, which features three faculty who worked at the University during the civil rights movement, will be a useful event in tracking progress the University has made during the last 40 years. While preparing the exhibit and in the time since, Keller has found differences as well as similarities in the campus environment.
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