The present is put in perspective at CU's Perkins Prize event

By Franklin Crawford

James A. Perkins was there in spirit; Thomas Jones was there in word and deed; and David Perkins was there in the flesh.

The ceremony for the 10th Annual James A. Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony at Cornell marked another high point in the history of the award. About 100 people attended the event in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room, April 21.

2004 Perkins Prize winner Funa Maduka '04, second from right, poses with, from left, Cornell trustee Carolyn Neuman; Esther Tang '04, senior class president; and Maduka's mother, Helen, in Willard Straight Hall, April 21. Robert Barker/University Photography

Senior Funa Maduka received the $5,000 grand prize for her work in creating a course titled Government 210: Race in the United States and at Cornell. Francine Jasper, assistant director for International Programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, accepted a $1,000 honorable mention for herself and colleagues involved with the course INTAG 602: Agriculture in Developing Nations; and senior Zahra Aziz accepted a $1,000 honorable mention on behalf of several organizations involved with a project called Muslims and Islam Revealed.

The Perkins Prize was established in 1994 by Thomas W. Jones '69, Cornell trustee emeritus, to honor Cornell President Emeritus James A. Perkins, the university's seventh president, who died in 1998.

David Perkins, who attended the ceremony with his sister, Tracy Perkins, and her daughter, Arla Berman, provided comments on behalf of his father.

Perkins recalled his days as a faculty brat on a big playground called Cornell and how that all ended in the spring of 1969 with the Willard Straight Hall takeover and the fallout from it. Perkins said he came home one day to find police cars in his parent's driveway and said the entire family was secreted to a safe house up the lake. He described his confusion and fear after hearing his father disparaged by black and white students alike, and later whipsawed by scathing criticism from formerly supportive friends in the faculty.

Jones -- one of the student leaders in the Straight takeover -- and James Perkins later became friends, and David Perkins said it meant a lot to his dad to shake hands in public with his former antagonist at the first Perkins Prize ceremony in 1994. But before saying that, David Perkins made an admission that provided a glimpse of the late Cornell president's character.

"Fifteen years ago ... [I] finally told him I was gay. He said it wouldn't change his relation with me and he told me to 'be a good Quaker and bear witness,'" David Perkins said of his father. He added that the Quaker idea of "paying attention to each other's witness" was essential to understanding his father's philosophy and helped to explain how and why he handled the crisis of '69 the way he did.

President Jeffrey Lehman later reminded the audience that it was James Perkins' "pre-1969 decision to increase significantly the enrollment of African-American and other minority students at Cornell [that] laid the groundwork for interracial understanding on which we continue to build."

Lehman said Cornell has changed since 1969, but "it is not a multiracial utopia," he pointed out. "It is not as comprehensively diverse as our planet is. And we sometimes fail to meet our aspirations for civil disagreement. But integration here is meaningful. The diversity of this community has an important impact on the education of everyone who lives here. And for the most part, people do try to listen to one another. And for the most part, people are not afraid to change," Lehman said.

He then quoted Tom Jones, with whom he'd spoken the day before: "Each year the world changes a little," Jones told Lehman. "We live in a world dominated by conflict bred of ethnicity, race, religion, seemingly at a scale that overshadows the ideological tensions of the '60s. This condition points even more to the need for mutual understanding among races, cultures, religions."

Maduka, a student-elected member of the Cornell Board of Trustees, whose idea for a course on race went from notion to reality in little over a year, thanked the many people who helped make it happen. Among those she thanked were: President Lehman; Joe Holland, trustee emeritus; trustee Carolyn Neuman; Provost Biddy Martin and Vice Provosts Isaac Kramnick and Robert Harris; James Turner, professor of Africana studies; the faculty and six teaching assistants involved with Government 210; and the board of trustees, whose support and encouragement were vital to launching the class, she said.

Jasper briefly described the task of organizing a group of 61 undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and New York state extension educators, for a two and a half week trip to south India. The class curriculum consisted of tours, meetings and discussions in villages, cooperatives, universities, biotechnology centers, urban supermarkets and other areas of interest. Also honored with the award were Ronnie Coffman, CALS professor and International Programs director, and K.V. Raman, senior research associate with International Programs.

Aziz thanked members of the Cornell Arab Association, co-awardee Sughra Naqvi '03 and the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association. "Muslims and Islam Revealed" was a student project created to promote diversity and mutual respect among students, while dispelling stereotypes of Muslim culture. The project included speakers and community education efforts and culminated in an event called "A Night of Culture" held in the Straight's Memorial Room.

Bhangra, a Cornell student dance group book-ended the event with athletic and graceful performances by both its male ensemble, who opened the ceremony, and its female group, who closed it.