MBA Faculty Lets Strikers Waive Exams

Waiving final examinations was one of four options the MBA faculty passed yesterday for students participating in the Afro-led strike.

Students waiving exams will get grades based on work finished to date. The faculty, in a three-hour meeting, voted three additional options: normal exams, take-home exams completed by July, and exams postponed until the Fall. They defeated a Student Association proposal for a pass-fail option.

Yesterday's faculty meeting followed a 90-minute secret session with Afro in which black students accused individual faculty members of racism.

Grover P. Walker, co-chairman of Afro, said that the faculty vote on exams "has not affected the reasons why we struck or our grievances. We still intend to resolve these grievances and change the administrative mechanisms that make these grievances possible."

More than 100 white students stayed out of classes yesterday to express their support for the Afro strike, which began Monday and will continue for the remainder of the term.

John B Mumford, chairman of the Student Association, said that "the blacks have gotten a commitment from the rest of the community. There will be at least a few hundred people not taking their exams. I hope it will improve the dialogue."

Afro has scheduled a meeting on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. when its members will discuss with white Business School students the ways they can combat racism on campus and across the nation. The timing coincides with first-year MBAs' first exam, a four-hour marketing test. Finals for second year students began one week ago.

When black students went on strike last Monday, they issued a statement entitled "Murder at Jackson State and Murder at H.B.S." The statement accused the Business School in general of "conscious and subconscious racism." along with "selective measures" against individual black students. -S.Z.G.