TCG: Desegregating Higher Ed (ft. Annie Mendenhall)

Desegregating Higher Ed

A Strozier Faculty Lecture Series conversation with Dr. Annie Mendenhall

How has higher education changed since desegregation? It’s Constitution Day and the start of a new school year, and this week, the Robert I. Strozier Faculty Lecture Series kicked off its fortieth season. To mark these milestones, Dr. Annie Mendenhall, associate professor from the Department of Writing and Linguistics, joins Leigh in a follow-up conversation to her Strozier talk about desegregation plans, policies, and politics … then and now and in Georgia and beyond.

(Photo © FreeImages/Maria Amelia Paiva Abrão)

To skip the intro, fast forward to the 2:15 mark.

• Part of the Robert I. Strozier Faculty Lecture Series
• “From Defiance to Deficit: How College Desegregation Influenced Educational Policy”
• Annie Mendenhall
• Abstract In 1969, investigators from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare visited Armstrong State College to report on the state of its desegregation activities. For two decades afterward, Armstrong, nearby Savannah State College, and the entire University System of Georgia were part of a national effort to enforce postsecondary desegregation across the South amid the tumultuous political and legal shifts on the issue of desegregation. This lecture describes the history of postsecondary desegregation enforcement, focusing on how desegregation plans in Georgia and other states influenced educational policies on remediation, retention, and educational access.