‘I was too politically aware for my own good’

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Security versus risk.

How Beverly Tatum dealt with that conflict played a critical role in her academic career, leading to her current job as president of Spelman College.

Trained as a clinical psychologist, Tatum spent most of her career as a professor and writer on race issues. She has led the historically black women’s college in Atlanta for 12 years, coming from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. While at the helm of Spelman, Tatum spearheaded a successful $158 million fundraising campaign for the highly ranked liberal arts school of 2,100 students.

Tatum, 60, is stepping down in June to spend more time reading and writing — the two forces that shaped her entire life.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: I was born in Tallahassee. My parents and grandparents were educators.

My father was an art professor at Florida A&M. He would have liked to get his doctorate at Florida State University, but he was not able to attend because of segregation at that time, which was in the mid-1950s. He had to travel to Penn State to get his doctorate.

After that, he got a job at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. He was the first African-American professor at that college and taught there for over 30 years. I grew up in Bridgewater, which is a small town about 30 miles outside of Boston.

Q: Your mother, an elementary school teacher, positioned you for success early. What did she do?

A: I was my mother's first student. I learned to read at the age of three. I came to Bridgewater when I was 4 years old and got my own library card.

So much of my academic success was rooted in the fact that I was a voracious reader. I actually didn’t go to kindergarten. I started with first grade. Then I skipped second grade.

Part of my life experience is that I always have been younger than everyone else in classes. But I also had a lot of confidence in my academic ability. I’m a big believer in early childhood education.

Q: You lived in a predominantly white neighborhood during the height of the civil rights movement. How did that affect you?

A: I was the only black kid in my classes. All of my friends were white. It was not a hostile environment and I was not ostracized.

I graduated high school in 1971 when lots of civil rights issues were going on. I did get irritating questions about different black experiences, which I did not have. For example, “What’s it like to live in the ghetto?” I lived across the street from the high school.

I became more interested in exiting Bridgewater. No one likes to be stereotyped.

Q: So you went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut. You then attended the University of Michigan, where you combined course work with experiences at mental health centers and a psychiatric hospital to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. in clinical psychology. While writing your dissertation, you got a job at the University of California at Santa Barbara. What happened there?

A: I did not like living there. I found it be one of the most racist places I've ever lived.

For example, when we moved there in 1979 there was a tight, very expensive rental housing market. You read an ad for an apartment and you call up and they say it’s available. But when you get there, they look surprised (that you’re black) and tell you it was already rented.

Later, when I taught an “Exploration of Racism” course at the university, I sent kids out in mixed pairs to try to rent an apartment. They’d come back and say, “I couldn’t believe it. When the white pair went out, they were told the apartment was available. But when the racially mixed pair went, they were told that no vacancies were expected for the next two years.”

In teaching, I have found that it’s important to create experiences that people could not deny.

Q: You were working part-time in the college counseling department and part-time as a lecturer in the Black Studies department. What happened when you applied for a full-time teaching position at UCSB?

A: I had a speaking truth to power moment.

There were no other black female faculty members. An opening came up for a full-time teaching position. It was advertised as a three-year appointment. But the chairman of the Clinical Psychology department came to see me and told me to think about it as only a one-year appointment.

I stuck up for myself and said, “It was advertised as three years. If you don’t like me after that, you don’t have to rehire me.”

He was disappointed with my answer, and so was the dean of arts and sciences.

I was about 26 years old and said to the dean, “I’m the only black woman here.” Then I told him that I was not being treated fairly and that I had no intention of meekly accepting it.

The dean said I was too politically aware for my own good.

Bonus questions

Q: Then what happened?

A: The next day there was no money for me to continue in my temporary teaching position in black studies.

I was able to get a full-time job in the counseling center. But I said to my husband that I was tired of Santa Barbara. We started looking for other opportunities.

Q: You and your husband doubled the size of the African-American faculty at Westfield State University in Massachusetts in 1983. You taught psychology there for six years, including a “Psychology of Racism” class. Then you took a risk that paid off. What happened?

A: I was tenured at Westfield State, meaning I had lifetime employment.

I learned about an opportunity at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, which would give me more time for writing. I applied and got the job offer as an associate professor, but it did not come with immediate tenure.

Then I had to ask myself, “Am I willing to give up lifetime employment?”

I felt I could get tenure again, which I did three years later.

Today, I would say that if I had stayed at Westfield State, I would never have been a college president. Some people thought I was crazy for taking the risk.

Q: At Mount Holyoke in 1997, you wrote “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” It became popular and propelled your career. After you retire in June, you’re planning to update the book. What will you say?

A: There's still segregation.

What happened to my father in Florida when he had to go to Penn State has changed. But public education is still segregated, based on housing and neighborhood patterns.

Even today, a lot of young people are coming to college with very limited interaction with people different from themselves. That means black kids are still sitting together in the school cafeteria, as are white kids.

We still have to help young people develop the interpersonal skills to engage in a meaningful way across lines of difference.

Q: How do you do that, whether in school or in the workplace?

A: By affirming identity and building community.

Everyone wants to see themselves reflected positively in an environment. Are there people like me here? How are we portrayed?

To build community, students or employees need to have a sense of loyalty and feel that they’re involved. Sometimes, that means creating affinity groups like, for example, a women’s network.

Some companies are nervous about that because they fear it will lead to factionalism. But I find that a strong group affiliation creates a better sense of community, and you can bring all of who you are to the organization.

Q: At Mount Holyoke, you got the opportunity to become a dean and then acting president before becoming president of Spelman. Two years ago, you made a bold decision to eliminate Spelman’s intercollegiate sports program and replace it with a campus-wide wellness program. Why?

A: In December 2011, our athletic conference was falling apart.

My first thought was to join another conference. But it would mean traveling farther away and adding more sports, and that would cost more money. Our intercollegiate program was costing almost $1 million for less than 100 students.

Then I did research and found out how sedentary young black women were. Why were we continuing high school sports activities in college instead of introducing adult fitness activities that would be lifelong?

We are trying to change the trajectory of student health with a wellness program — “Eat better, move more, sleep well.”