Branham interview

[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]
Warren: Tell me about Live Drive.
Branam: Live Drive. Well, actually they just got in a little bit of trouble, not really
Live Drive but some of the people that were running Live Drive. Apparently there
was some empty beer cans or something found in the vicinity of the Live Drive
office or in the Live Drive van. As I mentioned before, unfortunately it took a death
to bring Live Drive back. I think that a Live Drive and the existence of Live Drive is

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sort of a microcosm of Washington and Lee's--our inability to recognize problems
before they happen. Not as an institution, at least not from a financial standpoint. I
mean, I think Washington and Lee does a really good job of their financial
planning. Most students aren't aware of our budget breakdown, who gets paid what,
but I think it's very interesting and important to see how Washington and Lee's
money is spent, and I think about that, because as an alumnus, I sort of want to
know where my money's going, and I'll give freely as much as I can.

         But it took a student to die before it brought back Live Drive. It's taking
numerous dropouts and unsuccessful terms, unsuccessful years, on the part of black
students before Washington and Lee reacts with any comprehensive program. It
takes a rape in the dorms before we add security locks or annual or biannual
programs for women and men about sexual relationships on campus. You know, it
always seems like we're reacting, from a social standpoint, we're reacting to the
problems that exist.

         Recently there have been a number of articles in the Trident and the Phi
about the living, breathing Honor Code. The Honor Code has been one of the few
areas, I think, from what I know, where the students seem to always be evaluating,
thinking about the Honor Code. But even still, at Washington and Lee you can be
kicked out for lying, stealing, or cheating, but you can be put on social probation for
sexual misconduct. You may not even be put on social probation for keeping
students of certain colors or backgrounds out of fraternity parties, and it just seems
strange to me that our priorities are in that order. I can understand it because
Washington and Lee is an academic institution, and the social structures sort of
formulate themselves, and they come second to the academics, and so we have to
maintain the academics, but I really think that if we are in the business of producing
honorable people, not just honorable men, and intelligent people, people who are
going to contribute good things to society, then we need to sort of think about how

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we should be behaving, not just in the classroom. But once again, it seems as
though we're reacting. We're not being proactive. So Live Drive, we're reactive.
Warren: Can you talk about the student dying and what happened on campus at
that time?
Branam: Well, I didn't know the student. I certainly knew of him. Students were
really saddened by the death, not surprised. In fact, I can recall a number of
conversations this year and probably last year, casual conversations, where, you
know, we'd be talking about death or something, and it seems like every class in
high school and every class in college has one student who dies before their time
from an unfortunate incident. I myself had said before that it's surprising we
haven't had more, if you consider the level of drinking and driving at Washington
and Lee.

         I think that the death really showed one of the strengths of Washington and
Lee, which I probably don't talk about enough, and that is a sense of family and
support that the professors provide. The professors go beyond their academic
responsibilities, and I heard that in a number of classes, including one of my own,
the professor sort of--you know, we brought it out into the open, which I think is
good. We talked about it a little bit before going back to academics. The students--!
think we filled two buses. The university President Elrod would have done
anything to ease the pain of the student's death. I'm not at a state institution, but I
don't think you get that at many other places.
Warren: What do you mean filled two buses?
Branam: With students going up to the funeral in Maryland.
Warren: In the snow?
Branam: Yeah.
Warren: They went anyway?

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Branam: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Other people were worried about that, too. You can say
that maybe perhaps they were foolish, considering the liability of taking two
busloads of kids, but on the flip side you can say, you know, they're really
committed to the student, the student who died, the family of that student, and the
students who wanted to go. We found a way to make it possible. And you never
heard anyone, faculty or administrator, worried about the cost. Maybe that would
happen everywhere, but I don't believe it to be the case. Washington and Lee really
cares about its students, and I really feel fortunate for that.
Warren: Let's talk about the faculty. Let's talk about the faculty as it is. I presume
you have frustration that there aren't more minorities on the faculty. How does the
faculty serve the minority students? Are you satisfied with the faculty as it is?
Branam: Well, I think the faculty at Washington and Lee, in nearly every respect,
have lived up to my expectation. If I look at the faculty as made up of a group of
individuals, in and of themselves, and here I'm trying to distinguish between my
ideal faculty and what we have, the faculty that we have here, they're fantastic. Do
they meet the expectations or the needs of minority students? Yes, because the
needs of minority students at Washington and Lee are the same as those for they
white students--they should be--and those are academic.

         I guess to the degree that they take into account problems that may arise as a
result of a minority student being a minority student on this campus, I don't think
they really take those situations into account, but I don't want minority students to
make excuses for the problems that they may have at Washington and Lee, just like
you wouldn't expect a female student or a male student to make excuses based on
their particular religion or sex or whatever.

         Although one of the peculiar situations that has happened many times at
W &L is that when an issue, either a current issue or something that's being talked
about based on a reading, when that issue presents something that is particular to

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the black American experience, it's funny but you oftentimes see the professor or
the students sort of turn your way as if you're supposed to give the response from
the black perspective. The O.J. Simpson trial, for instance. I mean, that's a
ridiculous example, but--
Warren: No, it's not.
Branam: Well, I only said that because I think the whole trial is ridiculous. But the
O.J. trial, or if you're talking about racism in society, you're reading [W.E.B.] DuBois
or you're reading whatever, it seems like professors and students expect that you're
going to give the black perspective. That, I think, is one of the most frustrating
things about the academic experience of black students, because there are so many
misunderstandings in that presumption. There's the misunderstanding that all
blacks think alike, that you know how blacks think, that you think the same way
that other blacks think, whether you even care, you know? And that's happened a
dozen times at W&L. I'm sure it happens everywhere. I don't think it's particular
to us, but I've said on a number of occasions, you know, prefaced my response by
sort of illuminating the problems in that presumption and then going on to say,
"Here's how I feel. If you want to take it for the black perspective, take it. If you
want to take it for my perspective, take it."

         Now, my ideal faculty, of course, would be more, I don't know, more
integrated, more imaginative, creative, still committed to teaching undergrads, but
it seems like when I think about my favorite professors on this campus, my favorite
professors that I've had, a number of them are gone because the institution wasn't
committed to the way they taught or the way they looked at the world. All of them
were proven academics, and so that's a real source of frustration, women and
minorities, and white men, too. It's not just black men. Obviously Washington
and Lee needs to do a better job of hiring black professors, qualified black professors,
qualified white professors, white women. We have plenty of white men. I think

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there's a problem there. Amazingly enough, the students at Washington and Lee,
while in public, they talk about their frustrations with the political scene and
affirmative action and social programs that disproportionately help blacks and the
poor. Deep down, though, I think there is a real sense of yearning to understand
and to learn, and I think that can be found in the fact that when "black courses" are
offered, there's a waiting list fifteen, twenty people long nearly every time.
Warren: Who takes those classes?
Branam: Whites, blacks, everybody, women, men. They're the most integrated
courses at Washington and Lee.
Warren: And yet did you say they're not offered very often?
Branam: Yes. I'll give you some specifics. Professor Simpson's African-American
art course is offered, I think, every other year or every third year, maybe. That had
twenty-three students. All these courses tend to attract what I would consider the
most dynamic professors, those professors are not necessarily interested in standing
up and lecturing. They usually want to conduct it in a type of seminar, which you
usually can't have more than fifteen students. But these courses have fifteen people
on the waiting list, and because the professors want Washington and Lee students to
have the experience, the classes end up ballooning to maybe twenty-three or twenty-
four. So, you know, that's happened.

         There's an African-American lit course that's taught in the English
Department. Professor Peck, who was the professor of that, of course, was let go by
Washington and Lee, not rehired. Professor Hall over in the Politics Department
chose to leave for personal reasons but also because of some of the realities on
campus, but he taught three black courses within politics.
Warren: What do you mean because of the realities on campus?
Branam: I shouldn't speak for him, but he and I were very close. I don't think he'd
mind to a certain degree. His wife is a dean of the North Carolina school system, so

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he would commute every week. He did that for six years. So those were the
personal reasons, you know, being away from the family and his young daughter,
but the fact that there are no other, except for Professor Hobbs in the law school,
there were no other consistent black professors with whom he could bounce ideas
off of, and that's, I imagine, frustrating for an academic. So even though he was
committed to Washington and Lee, and they offered him tenure, they were going to
give him raises, whatever he wanted, he could have asked for anything and he
would have gotten it, but it just goes to show there's a lot more to be said than
money.

         And so, anyways, I'd like to see a more diversified group of professors, and I
think that the Washington and Lee students are proving over and over again,
whether subconscious or not, that they, too, are interested in a different perspective.
If their response is, "I hated that professor because he or she thought in such a way
and I totally disagreed with it," well, that's learning. To learn what one dislikes--!
mean, very few people can actually articulate what it is about something that they
dislike. So that's an important part of learning. But if you have a group of
professors who think just like the students who came from the same background as
the students, well, you're not going to have a very interesting dialogue.
Warren: Well said. How about alumni? And I feel very odd, because I agree with
what you said a few minutes ago about how obnoxious it must be for you to be asked
to represent the minority point of view. I'm doing it myself. But you're doing it,
and you agreed to come and do it, so let me continue on with these obnoxious
questions. How important is black alumni? Do they come back? Do they reach out?
What role have they played for you?
Branam: Virtually no role at all. I have met two black alumnus who were not here
during any part of my four years. There are some, obviously, alumni now that I

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know because they were here during my four years here. So I won't count them.
But the other two were just casual, one-time--
Warren: You're in Kathekon, right?
Branam: No.
Warren: I thought you were. Okay.
Branam: I do phone calls for them, but I don't [unclear]. You know, I think that's
really unfortunate. Well, I mean, it is unfortunate. I can understand. I imagine
that their experience at W&L was tenfold more difficult than mine or present
students, although to a certain degree, they were here in larger numbers in the past,
they have been, than we are now, but the expectations were very difficult, and they
were trail blazers, and so we're riding their wave. But I guess students now have
some different problems than they did. But irregardless of how they feel about
Washington and Lee as an institution and their experience, I would be appalled to
find any of them who would not be concerned about the experience of present-day
MSA black students on campus. I can't imagine any of them not being concerned or
empathizing with our experience here, our frustrations. So to that extent, I think
it's unfortunate that they don't call or come back or provide insight, provide job
opportunities or links, and I say that having had white alumni who have been
some of the kindest people I've met, who've opened doors or may yet open doors
for me and who are genuinely interested in my being successful because it promotes
the good of the institution. So if the reason that black alumni don't come back and
offer their assistance, if their reasons are personal, I think that that's unfortunate,
but I guess I'll be in their shoes next year. So we'll see. Maybe I'll be hypocritical. I
don't know. I doubt it. I doubt it.
Warren: Do you plan to come back?
Branam: Oh, yeah. Definitely.

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Warren: What would bring you back? What do you think? Sitting here today,
what do you think will bring you back as an alumnus?
Branam: Well, it won't be the parties. It won't be the students. When I was
applying for the job that I now have, there is a professor in the Politics Department,
Professor Connelly, and he and I disagree on a lot of things. I think I'm probably
considered a flaming socialist at this school, and he's fairly conservative, but when I
was applying for this job, he said, "Well, can I call and encourage the Higher
Achievement Program to hire you?"

         And I said, "Well, of course." And I said, "Well, just out of curiosity, what
are you going to tell them?"

         And he said, "Well, I'm going to tell them that you're an enduring optimist."
And I think that that is what will bring me back to Washington and Lee, in addition
to my love for the institution itself, but I want to come back because I think
Washington and Lee can improve on its already great foundation and great
traditions. I wouldn't come back if I thought it was hopeless.

         I think Washington and Lee can be all that it is and more and better than the
fourteen or fifteen institutions that are ranked above us. Numbers aren't
important, but we have almost everything we need, all the capability, but we just
need people to sort of push us in the right direction. So if they'll let me, you know,
I'll do it. I'd love to.
Warren: Two last items, I think, to talk about. You're a politics major. What has
Mock Convention been for you?
Branam: Mock Convention is good. It was a very good experience. I mean, it was
fantastic. I was State Chair for Oregon. Had it been a Democratic Convention, I'm
sure I would have run for one of the higher positions, but I knew that I would have
some real frustrations with the Republican convention, but I think as a tool to learn
about the political process, I think that it's unparalleled. I did it in high school as

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well. And so I think it's growing. I mean, it's already one of great traditions of
Washington and Lee, but this year, having broken records and been on national
television live, which was unprecedented, I think it clearly benefits the institution
in terms of its ability to recruit successful high school students.

         When Duke won the national championship, and this is shown over and
over--I'm sure you're familiar with this, but when Division One schools win
national titles, as Duke did back in '92, '91, Duke could have filled its entire
freshman class with 4.0s because of having one the national championship, so they
found out. Of course, they didn't, but the point is, when you have that national
exposure, you can draw great students. So because we're not the Division One
powerhouses, we have Mock Convention.
Warren: Did you know about Mock Convention before you came here?
Branam: Yeah.
Warren: Was it a draw?
Branam: Yes, definitely.
Warren: And were you involved through all four years? You're an interesting
person in that you came just after a Mock Convention and you're terminating with
a Mock Convention.
Branam: Yeah. My position in terms of when I graduate, you know, from high
school and college and the national conventions, my being a senior in both cases is
great because I've been able to hold leadership positions both in my high school
convention and this convention, which is mostly reserved for seniors. Yeah, it was
definitely a draw. When I was a prospective, they had a list of people who had come
and spoke, [Bill] Clinton, [Michael] Dukakis, you know, and that was a big draw. Not
many schools of this size can do that. So it showed me that Washington and Lee
was doing something special in political.

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Warren: I'm very intrigued. As I sat there in the Mock Convention, and I'm of
your persuasion, and watching these kids and how totally gung-ho they were, and it
was obvious that part of their thrill was that this was a Republican convention, and
I'm this great observer at this point, and this was my first year here, and I thought to
myself, "My God, this must have been acting job for the last three or four
conventions."
Branam: Apparently so.
Warren: And so I'm interested. Did that come out? Were people really talking
about that as it was coming up, how thrilled they were that it was Republican?
Branam: Oh, yeah. In fact, I'm not sure if you caught the comment at the alumni
reception that we met at when Dean Howison, when asked about Mock
Convention, I think, made the comment that finally Washington and Lee students
didn't have to act, and that certainly created another level of excitement that was
there. I sort of sat back and laughed a lot of it off. Politics, for me, it's a love, it is a
joy, but it's also pretty serious. So I do become very frustrated. In fact, I left the
convention during Newt's [Gingrich] speech and wrote a critique of Bill Bennett's,
which everyone thought was a great speech, but it was logically flawed.

         But, I mean, boy, it was amazing to think that Washington and Lee, the size
of the institution and the fact that we're great students, but you know, we're
students, and we don't have the resources that the national campaigns had, but
when the race was very much in doubt, we came incredibly close to an accurate
prediction, as we later found out. So from a state chairman's point of view, having
conducted most of the research myself for Oregon, I was thrilled that--if we would
have gotten a grade, it would have been an A-plus, you know.
Warren: Tell me about that. Tell me about doing the research.
Branam: Well, doing the research, the State Chair had persons on his committee
that could help. It was up to the state chairman to decide to what degree his or her

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involvement would be in doing the research, planning the floats. Oregon was--we
pumped out our teeshirts before any other state for the convention. We were proud
of that. In fact, we sold them to a lot of other delegations. Students really liked
them.

         The research was really detailed. We were required to go back to the states,
not physically, but talk to all of the persons in the controlling committee of the
Republican party in the state, all of the county heads of the party, members of the
media, academics at the universities, to get as many different perspectives, because,
of course, when you are talking to a chairman of a county, for instance, in Oregon,
depending on the region, that person may be more conservative or less
conservative than the constituents which they represent. That's very important to
know, because then if you call them up and say, "How are the people feeling?" if
you don't know their persuasion, then you may get a totally inaccurate portrayal. In
fact, Oregon comes out to look very conservative when, in fact, we're not, based
upon population distribution and the fact that most of the chairmen and
chairwomen are more conservative than their constituents, things like that. So you
really have to know the game to predict, and every state chairman or chairwoman
was required to know the rules of voting and things like that. And then, when you,
of course, put them all together you get the whole. It was pretty complex, I think.
Warren: And how do you think you'll take this experience of Mock Convention
and use it in your political life?
Branam: That's interesting. Well, for one, it looks good on the resume, and
especially for me, you know, as a politics major and going into politics. I'd done it
in high school, but this was, of course, in a lot more detail. I think it improved my
research skills and it taught me a lot about how politics on the state level work. I'm
much more familiar with how the federal level, although I've worked on a number
of campaigns, so I've had that experience now, and then I've also sort of from the

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political analyst perspective. So it's just really building skills that are necessary for
running campaigns, you know, which is what I want to do, and being able to put
everything together and make sense out of what oftentimes appears to be fickle or
uninformed voting behavior, which it's really not. There really are concrete
reasons. A person's ability to figure that out is the strength of their understanding
of the political process.
Warren: We're almost done with the tape. I would like to come full circle and get
back on that first-class flight coming into Washington and Lee the first time. Was
that normal, to fly somebody in first class?
Branam: No. No. You know, I would love to think that they did it to impress me.
The reality is that probably every other seat was sold out. I don't remember at the
time. I don't remember. I don't know why. I don't I don't remember how many
black students came in with my class. It was pretty low. We're only graduating five,
I think, six maybe. I've forgotten. So they could have been desperate. You know,
maybe my scores were attractive to them. Certainly the fact that I was black and
from the Northwest.
Warren: How did they know you were black?
Branam: I'm sure I put it on the form. Also, as I said, Andy was a good friend of
mine. He was an honors scholar here, and he worked, I think, with the admission--
I mean, I know he went over there and said, "You've got to get this guy. He's a
friend of mine." I'm sure he told them a little bit about me. I think they were pretty
conscious of--1 mean, if I were white, I don't think they would have been as
proactive as they were, especially because I did apply late, as I said. I think the
deadline was January fifteenth. I didn't send it in until--in fact, I think I faxed it
something like on the twentieth or something like that. I probably didn't do the
best job on my application because I didn't really care. I mean, I didn't really care
about Washington and Lee. I was set to go to U of 0, and they were going to give me

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$2,000 in cash every year to go to U of 0. I would have been loving life instead of
paying for it here, but I think I made the right decision. I hope so.
Warren: So when you arrived as a freshman, tell me about that.
Branam: Well, my weekend--! never really did figure this out. When I came as a
prospective, I came on a weekend where there were a number of other minority
students here, but it wasn't Minority Student Weekend, I don't think, because there
were a number of white students here as well. I think it was probably a coincidence,
although they do tend to keep the weekends separate. I think that does a disservice
to the prospectives, because on the weekend you don't really get the feel for
Washington and Lee on the hill that you do during the week, obviously, and they
always put the black students with another black student as a host. So when you
come here and you come in with all these other black prospectives, you really get a
different feel for Washington and Lee than the real experience.

         So when I came as a prospective, as I look back, I was pretty uninformed.
Fortunately, it ended up working out. But I remember the first day walking on the
hill, on the Colonnade, I thought, "You know, I thought there were a lot more black
students on this campus when I came here," and I was pretty surprised and
uncomfortable, and I wouldn't say I felt betrayed, but I do remember feelings like,
"This wasn't the impression that they wanted to give me when I came." But who's
to blame them? If they gave every black student the real deal, Washington and Lee
as it is would be a pretty hard sell, you know? They've got to break the cycle
somehow. Lying, though, is not--I wouldn't say they lied, but they didn't tell the
whole truth.
Warren: And the Honor Code a little bit?
Branam: Something like that. Something like that.

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Warren: I think it's an interesting pattern, and I'm not sure how it's going to be
changed. We're just about at the end of the tape. Would you like to summarize in
any particular way?
Branam: I think I mentioned before that most of the time I talk about, and black
students tend to talk about, the negatives of W&L, but although I have a deep
commitment to W&L, I still am very much self-promoting, and I wouldn't have
stayed here if I didn't think it would help me, inasmuch as I do enjoy helping other
people in the school, but Washington and Lee is a great school, and it has done a
number of things for me that have helped me.

         When I came here, or in high school, I had 2.0s, 1.5s, been in jail, taken in
custody, nearly in a farm home. I mean, Washington and Lee has transformed me, I
think, in many respects for the good, and so I guess the point is that for all its bad
things, Washington and Lee has what U.S. News and World Report says, the best
buy four years running, five years running, something like that.
Warren: Well, I'm glad you think so, since you've made such a huge investment in
it.
Branam: Amen to that.
Warren: Thank you, John.
Branam: Thank you.
[End of interview]

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