Graduate Research Grants Fund Travel to Civil Rights Site|
September 4, 2008 On September 25, 1957, nine African-American
students began attending classes at Little Rock Central High
School in Arkansas. Their presence, a result of the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision, in Brown v. Board of Education, signaled the
end of racially segregated schooling in Little Rock and the
culmination of a bitter struggle that captured the world's
attention. In 2007, the fiftieth anniversary year of this
historic event, Erin Krutko, a Ph.D. student in American
Studies, traveled to Little Rock to collect information for her
dissertation, "'A Won Cause?': Civil Rights, Public Memory, and
the Struggle for Educational Equity and Integration." Her
research travel was supported by grants from the Arts & Sciences
Office of Graduate Studies and Research. Erin expects to
complete her degree in the 2008-09 academic year. "Campus
research funding has allowed me to chase down research leads in
Kansas, North Carolina, Arkansas, Washington, D.C