Awarding of the Thomas W. Smith Graduate Scholarship

On Oct 1, 2007, the CUNY BA/BS Program celebrated the awarding of the 500th Thomas W. Smith Academic Fellowship. That same evening, the third annual Thomas W. Smith Graduate Scholarship was awarded to David Hamilton Golland, a former CUNY BA/Smith Fellow currently enrolled in the CUNY Graduate Center. Here is David's acceptance speech; it includes a wonderful tribute to the Program:

Seven years. Seven. Must be my lucky number. Twenty-one years ago--a multiple of seven--I started on my high school soccer team--as #7. And it's been seven years since I was a Smith Fellow, in the year 2000. In seven years, I've taken my Smith Fellowship and earned my BA, taken an MA at the University of Virginia, and am now only a year or so away from a PhD here at the CUNY Graduate Center. Seven years ago, as a senior in college, I started seeing another student very frequently; today we're married, and my wife was kind enough to join us today, as was my father, who has also been an unfailing ship's counselor, you might say, as I have navigated the rocky shoals of doctoral education. It's also a pleasure to be once again among friends like Steve Brier, with whom I worked for several years as a leader on the Doctoral Students' Council.

I should speak in brief about the topic of my research, which recently took me to musty libraries all over the country, but currently keeps me sequestered most days in front of the computer. I am writing a history of equal employment opportunity in the construction industry during the 1960s. As the Civil Rights movement picked up steam, with freedom rides, church bombings, lunch-counter sit-ins, and the showdown at the schoolhouse door, African-American workers were being railroaded out of a chance for a better future by segregated union locals, whites-only hiring policies, and Jim Crow apprenticeship programs, in Northern cities at least as much as in the South. What made the situation even more intolerable was the high visibility of federally-funded construction projects in the urban renewal areas, where blacks lived but whites worked. My research is on the attempts of Civil Rights organizations, as well as organized labor, to address the issue, and the public-policy response of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Now that my archival research is completed, I intend to use this fellowship to travel for interviews with people who were part of this important aspect of our nation's history.

Where will you be in seven years? Some of you might be, like me, on the verge of a PhD. Some of you will be doctors, some lawyers, and some will already be successful entrepreneurs. One of you will be standing here speaking to new Smith Fellows. But I know for sure that every one of you will be doing something important. I say this with confidence, because you are Smith Fellows and CUNY Baccalaureate students. You know, the Honors College may get all the press, with its fancy laptops and subway-car advertisements, but CUNY BA students are what this university is really all about--strivers trying to get something more, with the creativity and passion that has already earned you the admiration and respect of your peers and professors. You are the real reason for CUNY's existence. I am honored to stand with you tonight and to once again thank Thomas W. Smith and the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for everything they do. Thank you very much.
--David Hamilton Golland, Oct 1, 2007