As a graduate assistant working for the admissions office, one of my tasks is to give tours to prospective/accepted students who request it. The Upenn campus is not as big as I thought that it was going to be. Nonetheless, my tours only cover parts of the campus. Since, the tours are often limited to thirty minutes I basically give students thirty minutes worth of the campus. This, I think limits both the visiting student’s scope of the entirety of the Upenn campus and my own as well (since I don’t have to learn about any other buildings on campus other than the ones that I cover during my tour). Hence, I am ignorant to the history and location of many other buildings on campus, including the WEB Du Bois College House here on campus.
All of the students and staff involved with ASB came to Upenn for dinner today ( Wednesday March 7th). The dinner was held in the Wharton Building which I was familiar with, because of its proximity to the Graduate School of Education. Nonetheless, after the dinner we were supposed to go to the WEB Du Bois house, which I was completely unaware of. I didn’t know that it existed. Since, I was a student from Upenn people were expecting me to know where it was at and I just didn’t know. It was quite embarrassing…
Of course! As soon as I was able to get a hold of a computer I researched the house and its history. I will not go over all of the history but it is definitely worth reading. Here is the link: http://dubois.house.upenn.edu/house_history.html It is a housing building open to all and has a strong history of catering to African American issues. Even today, “the House continues to be a center for Black scholars searching diligently for an African identity and perspective within a historically White institution of higher learning.” Again, I highly recommend the one page brief history of the house.
As if this wasn’t enough… I also found out that WEB Du Bois was just (Mid February of 2012) given a posthumous recognition as an honorary Emeritus Professor of Sociology and African American Studies. In 1896, WEB Du Bois was hired to be an assistant lecturer here at the University of Pennsylvania. Because of the “times” he wasn’t given a full professorship. At the end, this most recent recognition of WEB Du Bois as a professor Emeritus serves more as an award to the University than to the late WEB Du Bois.
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