Despite calls to name Teachers College's tallest building after renowned Black scholar, TC president seeks to tie renaming to major donation

Upper West Side NY

26 February, 2022

3:03 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ISABELLA RAMIREZ FEBRUARY 23, 2022 Following over three and a half years of community efforts to rename Teachers College Building 528—formerly known as Thorndike Hall—after the University's first Black tenured professor Edmund W. Gordon, President Thomas Bailey announced in a recent email that TC will likely name the building in relation to a major financial gift. The decision comes after the TC Board of Trustees voted unanimously to remove the building's previous namesake in July 2020 in light of a report published by Krystal Cruz, TC '22, exposing Edward Lee Thorndike's history as a prominent eugenicist. Cruz also urged the administration to rename the building to Edmund W. Gordon Tower to honor the Richard March Hoe Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education at TC. In his email, Bailey references a 2021 building naming policy approved by the Cabinet and Board of Trustees establishing TC's practice of considering naming without a donation only in exceptional instances. He cited the limited number of facilities at TC and the rare opportunity to rename a building on its historic campus as reasoning behind the policy. With a significant donation backing the renaming, the Board of Trustees could expand its endowment fund to increase student aid and keep tuition low at TC, according to Bailey's email. "Teachers College proudly recognizes the enormous contributions of Dr. Gordon, whose teaching, mentorship, advocacy and groundbreaking research have had such a lasting impact in the field and continue to shape scholarship and influence our culture and community," Bailey wrote. "Even as College leadership—the Board of Trustees and Cabinet—recognize the compelling reasons to rename Building 528 in honor of a faculty member who so deeply embodies our mission and values, the renaming policy addresses additional weighty and urgent needs that we as an institution must meet in order to meaningfully advance our values of diversity, inclusion, equity and justice." As a former student, faculty member, administrator, and trustee of the college, and someone whose life work has focused on supplementary education and the achievement gap, Gordon expressed support for increasing the financial accessibility of TC. "If the naming of the old Thorndike building for Edmund Gordon were to prevent or stand in the way of the College's receipt of a major financial contribution to TC, I would have to thank TC for this enormous honor, but I would have to decline to accept the honor," Gordon said, according to the email. However, Cruz believes Gordon's quote was taken out of context. The quotation in Bailey's email did not include Gordon's proposal of a fundraising campaign and shared building name, with his name hyphenated with a donor's. Additionally, Gordon has communicated to Cruz that he wishes for the renaming efforts to continue. "Misrepresentation, half-truths, lies by omission, gaslighting on a macro-level—all to thwart Columbia becoming the third Ivy League school—after Princeton and Harvard—to name a campus building after an unparalleled and deserving Black man—during Black History Month," Cruz wrote in a statement to Spectator. "Profits over people." Tomorrow, Professor Barbara C. Wallace will host a TC Black History Month celebration over Zoom honoring Gordon, Associate Dean of Community and Minority Affairs Dr. Robert E. Fullilove, and other Black alumni leaders in health. There, Wallace plans to present an updated Gordon Tower Booklet with over 100 pages of letters of support for the renaming from student and national organizations. "To the university-wide Students for Gordon Tower," Cruz wrote, "and to the United States of America's higher education landscape—our beloved nation, on the eve of this historic Black History Month Celebration to honor our nation's most rare national treasure—Professor Edmund W. Gordon—CONTINUE to 'hold your ground.'" Staff writer Isabella Ramírez can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.