Two years ago, Monro catalyzed a workstudy program in which Miles students take a term off from school to work as interns in Birmingham businesses, labs and professional careers. Coming from steel-workers' families of eight or ten children, most Miles students have no idea of professional life styles, Monro says. "This program opens up expectations; when they come back, college takes on a ring of reality." The program also required a massive restructuring of the curriculum schedule, so that students returning from a semester in the community could pick up the normal sequence of courses. Yet Monro scoffs at the organizational task: "When you've got a program that's as dead right as this one, you don't worry about it. The only way to do it is to start."

Monro says that attitudes and orientations of Miles students have changed markedly during his years at Miles. Along with the small shift toward higher education, students have changed their career objectives. Whereas most Miles graduates went into education five years ago, Monro says that they now see teaching as unrealistic and unnecessary. "Black teachers are obviously losing their jobs, but other opportunities are visible." A newly-organized business major has become one of the largest programs at the college along with science and social science.

The politics on campus have taken a corresponding shift, Monro says. He describes 1969 as a period of "pronounced nationalism and separatism." "It was a good time for the white teachers to shut up," Monro says. "We did, and it worked out." Now he sees an emphasis on skills and careers, as reflected in the shift to new academic interests.

The curriculum which Monro has developed, as well as the honors program and the work-study option, act as intellectual and practical circuits between Miles' students, the black community and the city of Birmingham. "Our job is to hook Miles into the power structure of Birmingham," he says. Monro's view of education coincides with the double commitment of the college which Arrington described, and accounts for the dual set of problems which Miles faces. Yet Monro consistently maintains a low profile--which perhaps is the reason he has been so effective. "A white man can work at a black college, provided that the black community runs it," Monro says. "There's no question about that here--the black community runs Miles. I only work for them." When the class discusses personal identification with black authors, Monro hangs back: "The likes of me isn't much help except to take attendance."

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN society--as Monro sees it--is tightly linked to the future of Miles College and others like it. "From the vantage point of the white community, everyone thinks the great white father is going to take care of the black man and we know he isn't," Monro says. "One reason white America does not see the need for the black college is that we really do not comprehend the existence of the black community in this country and the depths of the problems our black community must solve."

The reaction at Miles to the deaths of two Southern Louisiana University students protesting "Uncle Tom-ism" in the SLU administration illustrates Monro's point. In contrast to most large universities, there was no organized expression of outrage at Miles "for the same reason that black studies is not one of our largest majors," Monro says. "Here the point was already made--by the mere fact that Miles exists. Here the black student is 100 per cent; he's it. There was sorrow, pain and concern, but there was no felt need to strike out--you were supported and you knew it."

Birmingham's white community has an even larger stake in Miles, according to Monro. "I profoundly believe the good black college will help us to move toward a day of sound cultural pluralism--not assimilation--by strengthening the black community's sense of itself and its needs and pride in its heritage and its muscle and ability to do things for itself. The problem is a white problem. In segregating our black people, our Indian people, our Chicano people, what we white Americans have really done is segregate ourselves."

Monro is encouraged by his work with The Friends of Miles College, a predominantly white group of Birmingham citizens who seek areas for cooperation between Miles and the Birmingham community. The Friends supplied the funds for the Miles freshmen who attended Harvard Summer School last year. "It's a statement of concern and it's constructive," Monro says. "With this de facto isolation between the two communities, it's important that well-intentioned white people show it--show that they're there when you need them."

As for the future of Miles, Monro is optimistic. He predicts that Miles will eventually integrate its student body "up to a critical mass of maybe 30 per cent--but this is at least ten years away." For now, he is working on an exchange program with predominantly white colleges--including Harvard--as "a way for the white youngster to work out this racism--this part of himself."

Monro plans to remain at Miles, and in his same Freshman Studies position. There, he faces a problem which the dean of Harvard College cannot attack--that of making education and society accessible to those who find themselves "out of reach."

"The main issue we'll have to keep confronting is respect--that's the start--when confidence isn't by skin color," Monro says. "Relating somehow to the sound black college offers one orderly, rational way to begin to tear down the barriers we have built around ourselves." Without Miles College and its educational and organizational objectives, the future of Birmingham's black community probably would differ little from its past. Monro and other educators believe that unless colleges like Miles have a future, respect for the black community will continue to be defined in terms of boycotts and demonstrations, rather than individual leaders and institutions.

"The black college is more than just a college. It represents a position of strength and concern."