Naming Controversies
At its inception, students pushed for the new college to be named "Lumumba-Zapata College" in honor of Patrice Lumumba and Emiliano Zapata in an attempt to honor these famous twentieth century revolutionaries. Unable to get approval for this name from UC Administration, the college was named Third College with the idea that the student body would be one-third white students, one-third black students, and one-third other minority students. However, UCSD failed to attract enough black students for this plan to reach fruition.
In the early 1990s, an attempt was made to name the college after Martin Luther King, but failed when UCSD students objected to naming the college after someone who had plagiarized his doctoral dissertation. Also, King's family announced that they would rather see a full-fledged King College built in the South. In 1993 UCSD's third college finally received its official name after the death of Justice Marshall.
In the spring of 2007 a new controversy arose, as students of TMC began protesting against the administrators of the college. The Lumumba-Zapata Coalition (which has since been re-established) along with other students claimed the Dimensions of Culture Program had lost some of its original messages, protesting against what they termed a "new and diluted" core writing requirement with a decreased focus on race and the ethnic significance of the individual within society. The protests, including picketing, began with the controversial non-hiring of two D.O.C. Teaching Assistants. Others believed that the coalition was pushing an agenda of political indoctrination that conflicted with the academic goals of the Dimensions of Culture Program. The protests had mixed effects. In response to the complaints in regards to the curriculum a committee has been set up to review and change the curriculum accordingly. Student positions have been included on the committee so an equitable curriculum will be created. In August 2009, Co-Director of the DOC Program, Robert Horwitz stated, "Various criticisms were leveled at DOC in the last few years, and faculty and student investigations concluded that changes needed to be made. Those changes have been implemented and have resulted in a NEW DOC."
Read more about this topic: Thurgood Marshall College
Famous quotes containing the word naming:
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)