But the ASPAU students have to adjust as Negroes as well as individuals. Director Moll indicated there did not seem to be any strong geographic pattern to racial prejudice encountered by African students in the United States. Some campuses, like the University of Kansas at Lawrence -- "not a place you'd expect to be particularly cosmopolitan," says Moll--give the Africans a "marvelous" reception. Students have also commented favorably on the atmosphere in Atlanta, while there are "real social problems" in Oregon, he says.
And Harvard? There is a space on the ASPAU application form for the student's preference among American universities, and fully 98 per cent of West Africans list Harvard. Actually, Harvard with its 21 ASPAU scholars over the past six years ranks fourth among the 232 American colleges which have participated in the program. Purdue with 39, California at Berkeley with 24, and Princeton with 22, are higher. With increased emphasis on specific technical fields, more and more students will be attending schools like Tuskegee and U. Mass. in the future. Southern Illinois Univercity, where studies in soil chemistry are excellent, for instance, has requested 14 ASPAU students in the coming academic year.
Moll says he is perplexed about the social problems which Harvard and Radcliffe raise for the African student.
"In a liberal college community like this," he explains, "Africans are popular, but sometimes popular for the wrong reasons rather than for the right ones. Africans are often 'used' here; they tend to become status symbols. Cliffies especially treat them as symbols of their own worldliness and liberalism. Some feel that to be seen walking or dating one impresses the local community, and the fact that he is an African may just add more glamor to it. Free speech, free this, free that, is expected here, but it can throw curve balls, too."
"It's fun, but a little mysterious," comments a Harvard senior from West Africa. "They (girls) seem to think that being seen with me will make points with everyone else."
The mammoth task of selecting ASPAU scholars begin in the fall of each year when newspaper advertisements and radio spots invite applications. Preliminary processing is handled by field representatives of the African-American Institute who weed out applicants who have not attained a minimum standard in local high schools. The Institute also administers a specially designed College Board examination which further narrows the field.
In the spring, a team of 10 American ASPAU representatives spends a month in Africa, traveling in pairs to interview students in the capital city of their country. (Moll left the day before yesterday.) The two ASPAU admissions officers, plus one representative from the Agency for International Development, sit on a board with about a dozen African government officials and educators of the particular nation. This board interviews two or three times as many applicants as there are places available and makes recommendations to the final selection committee in America.
Back in Cambridge, a subcommittee of the ASPAU Board of Trustees makes the final decision after looking over the students' interests and prospective majors. It assigns them to universities best suited to their needs.
"We are filling only one-third of the places offered us by our member colleges," Moll says. There is certainly no lack of applicants, but the bottle-neck comes in trying to find money for living expenses since the U.S. government is budget-cutting on ASPAU. Moll is beginning to cast about for supplementary sources.
This will probably mean private foundation support, which in light of the recently disclosed CIA adventures raises some questions. Moll says his program is "pure," that its connection with the government is open and above board, but he is nevertheless disturbed about the impact of the CIA link with associate organizations.
"When they (African students) first come over here they are terribly suspicious," Moll says. "They cannot believe that there are no strings attached, that we do not want to get anything out of them. We had been making progress in relaxing those suspicions. Then all of a sudden--Boom! Things have changed a bit. It tears us up. We've been set back." One of the main questions he will be asking while in Africa this month is how great the impact of the CIA disclosures has been on African government officials formerly friendly to American scholarship programs.
Moll finds ASPAU so exciting "because practically every person we have here will count in the higher administration of an African nation." While noting that well over half of ASPAU scholars maintain "It frightens us," says Moll