National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education Release No. 0110.97 Remarks of Secretary Dan Glickman National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education 22nd National Conference on Blacks in Education Washington, D.C. -- April 11, 1997 INTRODUCTION Thank you, Dr. Davis [Laurence Davis, Chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff] for that introduction, and thank you NAFEO for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. You know, as I was coming over, I was thinking about our education system and what a great symbol it is for all that America means. I was reminded of that truth earlier this week when we had an historic first: Jazz won its first Pulitzer Prize, awarded to Wynton Marsalis, a great musician and educator of young people. I read recently that Mr. Marsalis had his first trumpet lesson at age 6 ... his second at age 10 ... and his third at age 12. His explanation? I would always ask my teachers how I could get better without practicing. If they couldn't tell me, I wouldn't come back.' All that changed when Wynton auditioned for his high school band. His father, of course, was a great musician in his own right, so the band director was very excited to see the young Marsalis ... then he played. All the director could ask was: Are you sure you're Ellis' son?' Of course, no one would dare ask that question after listening to Blood on the Fields.' It just goes to show that an education -- whether it's in music, in agriculture, in history, in any field -- is hard work. It is a lifetime's work. But it holds out the promise of transforming the individual for the benefit of all people. AN EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION That's why, here in America, we've made the decision that all of our people deserve access to a quality education. That's a smart choice. Never before in history has education been more central to our nation's strength. More than any military weapon, the power of our minds will determine the future success of our people. That's what we mean when we say knowledge is power.' That's something all of you and all of your predecessors who have led this great community of Historically Black Colleges and Universities have understood for more than a century now. Education -- especially higher education -- cannot simply take place in the ivory tower. If we are to keep the American dream alive -- if we are to keep the doors of opportunity open -- then we must open the doors of our colleges and universities to every willing mind. That's something President Clinton and this Administration understand to our core. That's why we've made student loans less expensive and easier to obtain. We've given tens of thousands of young Americans the opportunity to perform community service while earning money toward a college degree through our Americorps program. We're close to creating 1 million work-study slots -- an increase of 300,000 in the past 4 years. President Clinton would like to see 100,000 of those students working in literacy programs. I hope you can find a way to help. USDA'S ROLE Right about now, I usually start to get some strange looks. You might be thinking, This is all well and good, but what is the Secretary of Agriculture doing talking about education?' Well, I am the Secretary of Agriculture, but I'm not going to talk your ear off about cows and cotton today. Production agriculture is the heart of what we do, but we're an extraordinarily diverse department. Half of our people work in the U.S. Forest Service which we run. More than half of our budget goes to anti-hunger programs -- from the Women, Infants and Children program, to food stamps, to the School Lunch Program. That program alone gives us a pivotal role in education. Kids can't learn on an empty stomach. We work hard to make sure they don't have to try. And, at the higher end of education, we have a long history with the 1890s schools and Tuskegee University, primarily through research, education and extension. USDA also has an increasingly international focus. Earlier this year, I traveled to South Africa with Vice President Gore. USDA is pitching in there in all kinds of ways -- from helping the new government launch a school lunch program to helping farmers adopt more efficient practices that boost their incomes and the overall economy of this strong, young democracy. It was hard work, but it was work that makes you feel good about America's place in the world. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, I, too, have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have 3 meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.' As Secretary of Agriculture, it's my job to try and reach that day. I know all of you have given a good part of your own lives to that same pursuit. Together, we can do great things. USDA & HBCU'S That's something President Clinton recognized from day one. In 1993, he stepped in and issued the strongest executive order ever on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. I'm proud of USDA's response: About 9% of USDA funds for higher education go to HBCUs. That's been a fairly consistent figure for the past 3 years. I don't know what it was before that. We couldn't even find a tally. When I first came in as Secretary of Agriculture, I joined your fight to save the Capacity Building Grants program. It was a worthy cause. Last year, it distributed $9 million to 1890s schools to help them build their international renown for teaching and research in the food and agricultural sciences. I understand that USDA's Dr. Jane Coulter was here yesterday giving a presentation on Advancing Faculty Excellence' -- speaking to a standing-room-only crowd. And, we've expanded our efforts to encourage more talented young people from underrepresented groups to pursue careers in food and fiber. We have several programs underway, including our 1890s scholars, who we hope will one day come and work for us at USDA. And, we now have a graduate component: the Woodrow Wilson Fellows. I'd like to tell you just briefly about one of our fellows -- Cameron Bruett [BREW-IT]. He was an 1890s scholar, graduating from Tuskegee in 96. It took him only 3 years to get his animal sciences degree. He's now a Woodrow Wilson fellow. Through that program, he's studied Japanese at Middlebury, and public policy at Princeton. He's now working for USDA up at Plum Island in New York. He's working on foreign animal diseases which is a huge international trade issue. He's been accepted for early admission at Tufts where he plans to get his doctorate in veterinary medicine and his masters in public health ... I thought I was busy. Cameron is also now in the nomination phase for a Rhodes Scholarship. You better believe USDA is backing him every step of the way. We do faculty exchanges, too. This allows professors to see firsthand how our programs and policies work. And, last fall Dr. Bill Delauder, the President of Delaware State University, gave a presentation to my entire subcabinet on 1890s, HBCUs and USDA. It was a productive exchange. As a result of that meeting, all USDA mission areas are now involved. I welcome ideas from any of you on strengthening our relationships. Just a few weeks ago in Atlanta, USDA held a briefing for all HBCUs on the Fund for Rural America. That's $100 million a year for 3 years to improve the rural way of life. This year, there's $53 million for rural development, and $46 million for competitive grants in research, outreach and teaching. The more you integrate what you're doing at the university with the challenges of the real world -- from hunger, to the global economy, to the environment -- the more successful your proposal will be. Given your deep roots in the communities you serve, I don't doubt you can make that leap, and help strengthen our rural communities. In rural and urban America, we are now facing up to the daunting task of moving thousands of people from welfare to work. As the research of Dr. William Julius Wilson and others have so well documented, our highest hurdle will be finding jobs, particularly for residents of low-income communities. Just yesterday, President Clinton announced that the federal government will hire 10,000 people off the welfare rolls. He's challenged the private sector to follow his lead. USDA's seeking $280 million over the next 5 years to create more work opportunities in the community service sector. I ask all of you to contact your state agencies and see if there's a way you can help us make this effort real, and help folks regain their independence. Partnerships are the name of the game these days. We have the resources, and you most definitely have the expertise. And, we both know that the end goal of a quality education isn't simply a mind chock full of dates, names, and theories. It's a mind capable of constructively contributing to a society that ultimately fails or succeeds together. That's what Harry Truman meant when he said, We have to make it possible for every person to develop himself to the extent of his capacity and will, and no barriers should stand in the way; not for his or her sake, but for the sake of all of us.' CIVIL RIGHTS While we have come a long, long ways from the dark past from which so many of your institutions were born, we still as a country have not fully realized this vision of equality of opportunity. Sadly, I know this just from looking at my own Department of Agriculture. The vast majority of people at USDA are solid public servants, but I will make no excuses for the past. I can only promise that we are now writing a new chapter for our history books. It's been so bad that some folks call USDA the last plantation.' But when we were created in 1862, by our founding father Abraham Lincoln, he called us by another name. He called us the people's department.' On my watch, USDA's going back to the people's department.' I have a new, empowered civil rights enforcer, Pearlie Reed, a graduate of the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff AM&N. Sit down for a dispute resolution, and you're likely to be eye-to-eye with a Howard University law student ... who knows a thing or two about civil rights. We are changing the culture of the department of agriculture. I'm also establishing a national commission to save the small farm. We could use your help there, too. And, we're starting a comprehensive review of our research programs to make sure they're geared not just toward big agribusiness, but the little guy, too. It's the right thing to do. I ask you to join us -- through your partnerships with us, through your work with the people we both serve, and by -- literally joining us. Yes, we need veterinarians, and food and agricultural specialists, but we also need economists, lawyers, communicators, managers, trade negotiators, economic development experts, scientists, engineers, human nutrition researchers, anti-hunger advocates. You name it. I see that you had a job fair earlier today. I wish I'd been here. If we are to have a people's department that serves all the people, then we need a people's department that looks more like the American people -- down and up our ranks. We can do that together. CONCLUSION And, there can be no question that HBCU graduates are among the most qualified for public service. You produce 85% of our nations black physicians, 80% of our African American federal judges, 75% of our black PhDs, half of our black business executives and elected officials. HBCU alums are an A-list of Americans: Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, Reverend Jesse Jackson, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, our new Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman ... not to mention Dr. King. There is no question of the influence of every one of these great Americans on the life of all Americans. They are carrying on a historic legacy. Just look at the one, solitary life that first put Tuskegee University on the map -- George Washington Carver. Unfortunately, most folks only remember him as the peanut guy.' But, in many ways, he was the savior of the South. The boll weevil -- an insect ... well, you don't even really need to know what it is except that it devastated the cotton-based economy of many Southern states -- ruining farmers, especially low resource farmers, who were usually former slaves. Carver, who dedicated his life to improving the lot of African Americans, developed hundreds of new uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes -- corn and cotton waste, too -- everything from coffee substitutes to shaving cream. The South was back in business. Carver was born a slave, but he died having served as the director of agricultural research at the Tuskegee Institute. Legend has it, his revelations came from prayer. He asked the Lord: Tell me the secret of the universe.' The Lord answered: It's too vast for mortals to comprehend. Carver answered, Well, how bout peanuts?' Now that, said the Lord, is more your size. There isn't anyone here under the illusion that we're going to change the world overnight. But we can take it a few degrees. We just need to use our heads. We need to apply our best and brightest minds to the challenges of the future, and we need to give the next generation a well-rounded education -- one that's grounded in the real world, with deep roots in the communities we serve, and a strong ethic of public service and equality of opportunity. Thank you for providing so many young Americans with a first-class, public-spirited education. Your efforts are appreciated at the highest levels of this Administration, as they are across this nation. We will help you in every way we can. On behalf of a grateful president and a grateful nation, thank you. # NOTE: USDA news releases and media advisories are available on the Internet. Access the USDA Home Page on the World Wide Web at http://www.usda.gov