February is Black History Month, and while Professor of French Cherie Maiden is happy to have her significant place in that history at Furman recognized, it\u2019s more important for it to be remembered accurately.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always have to remind people that I was one of the first two, because Saundra Ardrey, who was hired to teach political science, came in the same year,\u201d Maiden said.<\/p>\n
Maiden and Ardrey broke Furman’s faculty color barrier in 1983 by becoming its first full-time African American instructors. They arrived nearly 20 years after Joseph Vaughn \u201968 enrolled as the school\u2019s first African American student<\/a> in 1965 and 15 years after students demanded diversity in Furman\u2019s faculty and staff in a series of articles published in The Paladin.<\/p>\n Maiden doesn\u2019t recall it getting much attention at the time, and though she has remained a fixture in the Department of<\/a>\u00a0Modern Languages and Literature <\/a>ever since, many people probably don\u2019t know of her status as a Furman trailblazer. Seeking to highlight her place in Furman history is one of the reasons Neil Jamerson and Natalie The, co-chairs of Furman\u2019s Diversity and Inclusion Committee<\/a>, have recommended renaming the Meritorious Award for Diversity & Inclusion for faculty the\u00a0Maiden\u00a0Invitational Award in her honor.<\/p>\n Maiden admits her list of reasons for applying to Furman was short and didn\u2019t contain \u201cfight for civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI came like my colleagues did. I was seeking employment and an opportunity to pursue teaching at an institution of higher learning,\u201d Maiden said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t coming to try to integrate Furman. I didn\u2019t have any noble ambitions in mind.”<\/p>\n A native of St. Louis, Maiden attended Washington University and was looking for her first job after earning a Ph.D. in French from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She knew little about Furman and had no idea that it had never had a black faculty member.<\/p>\n Maiden broached the subject during her interview and was given an answer that wasn\u2019t technically untrue. That’s because Ardrey had been hired a couple of weeks before.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked if there were any other African Americans on the faculty, and the response was more or less ‘yes’ in a certain way,\u201d Maiden said. \u201cI don\u2019t know that that would have changed my decision to come if I had learned that there weren’t … I had done all of my undergraduate work and my Ph.D. work at institutions that were predominantly white, so I always found myself in classes where I was oftentimes the only African American anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Maiden\u2019s plan was to stay at Furman until she could move to a larger city, but the next thing she knew she\u2019d received tenure and couldn\u2019t imagine herself anywhere else. Some of the credit goes to now-retired Professor of Spanish Bill Prince and the effort he put into making her feel welcome.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he just genuinely as a human being, for whatever reason, was more naturally open to welcoming someone not like himself, someone who didn\u2019t look like him,\u201d Maiden said. \u201cI think something in your life experiences have prepared you for that, or you\u2019ve made a choice along the way to not be a certain way.\u201d<\/p>\n Idella Glenn \u201984, who served as Furman\u2019s director of diversity and inclusion from 1996 until 2014, went out of her way to take one of Ardrey\u2019s political science classes, though it did little to help with her degrees in mathematics and computer science. That\u2019s because Maiden and Ardrey joining the faculty was hugely important to African American students, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t had (an African American professor) before,\u201d said Glenn, now a special advisor on inclusivity and diversity at Hollins University. \u201cIt was always important to me to see someone who looked like me. I had gone to a predominantly black high school, and coming to Furman was a complete culture shock in terms of African American representation.\u201d<\/p>\n Maiden recognized the special bond she had with students of color.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in my entire educational experience I had maybe three professors that looked like me, kindergarten through my Ph.D. program,\u201d Maiden said. \u201cIt\u2019s a totally different experience \u2026 There\u2019s something empowering to have someone that looks like you teaching you.\u201d<\/p>\n What was nearly as empowering for Maiden,\u00a0who currently holds the Lois Aileen Coggins Professorship in French<\/a>, was the day she learned that she, as a black woman, could be a mentor in ways that transcended race, just as white professors had for her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt had never occurred to me that I could be a role model to a white student,\u201d Maiden said. \u201cI had a female student tell me what an important role model I\u2019ve been for her, and I was struck by, ‘I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ve done. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ve said.’ I was confident I could mentor students who looked like me.”<\/p>\n But, she said, “There are other parts of who I am, and that\u2019s what some students are seeing and getting something from. That\u2019s when I realized putting ourselves in a box limits us so much.\u201d<\/p>\n