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Article clipped from Journal and Courier

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Victoria Coleman, an associate West Lafayette campus. here," he said. "Helen was insistent about educating and enlightening the faculty and administration of the university about what needed to be done not only here, but at other colleges across the country." Zamora, who worked with Williams during the early years of the Black Cultural Center, recently spearheaded efforts to create a scholarship in her name. "I felt a moral obligation not to let her contributions go unnoticed," he said. In 1993, the first Helen Bass Williams Scholarship, a $1,000 award given to an incoming freshman, was granted. The Learning Center, which Williams founded while at Purdue, has grown to serve about 1,000 students each year. The center initially was designed to help students who needed help in English. Today it helps stu- Continued from Page A1 starting the original Black Studies program, are apparent today. "At that point in time, the importance of an African American being in an authoritative position such as that one was big," Blalock said. "As black students, we were obviously proud. Having her on campus gave added credibility to those of us who were already there." By the time Williams arrived at Purdue, she already had left her mark on the civil rights movement. Antonio Zamora, director of the Black Cultural Center, said Williams was "like Fannie Lou Hamer," the legendary civil rights activist. During the mid-1960s Williams was director of the Mississippi Action for Progress, an organization that helped disadvantaged people in that state. Williams who held master's degrees in public health and French - also had taught at a one-room schoolhouse in Illinois and at two colleges. Williams was hired as a French professor in 1968, but soon found herself acting as an unofficial mother for much of the black student population, and a counselor for everyone else. A house that Williams rented on campus soon became a home where black students knew they could get a hot meal, a sympathetic ear or a place to stay, Zamora recalled. Leon Trachtman, a professor of communication who worked closely with Williams, remembered her strong will that commanded respect by both administrators and students. Despite the threats and abuse that came with her work in Mississippi, Trachtman said Williams' persona at Purdue was a fearless one. "She had a very clear vision of what needed to be done. She had high aspirations for the young black students we had Problems to giving advice on By Michael Clevenger/Journal and Courier professor of vocational education, looks out over at Purdue's Ole dents in a range of areas, such dith Gappa as vice president for as time management, note tak- human relations and Myra ing and study skills. Mason as director of diversity Williams' greatest legacy, and multicultural affairs, blacks Trachtman says, is the memory at Purdue say more work needs of her as a model of self- to be done. discipline, study and commit- The Black Caucus of Faculty ment, and "the attitude that and Staff at Purdue, of which dreams can be realized. She Coleman is the chairman, has motivated a lot of us who knew been involved in an ongoing her well," he said. discussion on the recruitment More than 25 after Wil- and retention of black faculty, liams started at years Purdue, blacks staff and students. One faculty member calls the low number make up 1 percent of the West "extremely abysmal." Lafayette members. campus' roughly 2,000 "Some of the gains that people faculty made, we are beginning to lose,' Victoria Coleman is one of Coleman said. "If there is about 25 black professors at interest in the welfare of black Purdue. An associate professor faculty, and in our future, talk of vocational education, she is to us. grateful for predecessors like "We are here because of the Williams who helped pave the Helen Bass Williamses, the way for her and her colleagues. Sojourner Truths. Without what But despite a sense of guarded they accomplished, there would optimism, helped in part by the be fewer of us on college camaddition in recent years of Ju- puses anywhere."
Article from 03 Feb 1995Journal and Courier(Lafayette, IN)
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