Hurtful to Blacks : CSUF Head Decries Plan to Cut Loans

Cal State Fullerton President Jewel Plummer Cobb on Monday opened the celebration of Black History Month on her campus by deploring proposed Reagan Administration student loan cuts that she said would hurt black students and other minorities.

“In 1987, we black citizens are concerned about financial support for higher education,” Cobb told a noon convocation at the Cal State Fullerton Amphitheater. “Recently there have been announcements about revenue cuts recommended to Congress in all categories of financial aid. In some areas, there would be a recision of financial aid.

“We are all hopeful that there will be a reversal of that message to Congress.”

While she did not mention any official by name, Cobb referred to the proposed cuts in federal aid to education that have been advocated by Education Secretary William Bennett and President Reagan. The Democrat-controlled Congress has vowed to resist many of the proposed cuts.

‘Great Contributions’

Cobb said black college students are part of the continuing history of Afro-Americans. She said America has been made richer because of “these blacks who came many years ago, 300 years ago, involuntarily to these shores. . . . Since that time these blacks have made great contributions to America.”

Cal State Fullerton benefits from having a culturally diverse student body and faculty, Cobb said. “We are not a school of one culture,” she said. “Our heterogeneity speaks of one world and speaks of the population of mankind.”

Cobb issued two challenges to CSUF students:

- She urged students to band together in small groups to form “Academic Self-Help” units. Cobb said that students helping each other through mutual study would be a fitting way to mark Black History Month.

- She called on the university’s black students to “adopt” a black student at the junior high school level “and become a big brother or sister to them and act as a role model for those young students.”

The observance of Black History Month continues through February on the CSUF campus, with 18 special events scheduled. Among them is a black-history fashion show, “Queens of the Nile, Now,” slated for noon Thursday at the CSUF Amphitheater.