74 • U NIV E R S I T Y O F A R K A N S A S - F O R T S M I TH : TH E F I R S T 85 Y EAR S
Harold Cameron, dean of students, headed the Refugee Education Program in 1975 established at Fort Chaffee with Westark assistance to help meet the rising tide of immigrants from Southeast Asia. Cameron is shown here meeting with new arrivals in a barracks building.
The barracks were partitioned into cubicles using sheets of plywood, with one or more families assigned to each partitioned area. Having little privacy or security, one member of each family usually stayed in the assigned area to guard family possessions from possible theft. Shortly after the relocation center opened, two men who were associated with the Southern Baptist Convention and who had spent time in Vietnam organized programs for teaching basic English, cultural orientation, and child care. The English program was quite limited. Classes were conducted 9–11 a.m. and 2–4 p.m. and were staffed using volunteers from the surrounding communities. The men, Trueman Moore, a local Baptist minister, and Gene Tunnell, a Baptist social worker, initially were able to recruit an adequate number of volunteers anxious to work with the refugees. As the season neared early summer, the heat, the language barrier, and inadequate facilities made the job less attractive. It became difficult to find enough volunteers to continue the program. In addition to the Southern Baptist program of education, the local YMCA assumed the responsibility of organizing and implementing a program for leisure time. Since Fort Chaffee was only seven miles from the Westark campus, the relocation center was considered a suitable venue in which to offer the college’s services. Telephone lines to Fort Chaffee were jammed for days, but finally Ben Whitfield and Harold Cameron, dean of students, managed to
reach George Blasingame of HEW and offered to develop and implement an education program for the refugees. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Arlington, Va., had already been selected to replace the volunteer program. However, Blasingame called back a few days later and told college officials that the CAL program was too expensive. He asked Westark to submit a proposal. Without realizing the enormity of the task, college officials submitted a proposal which was readily accepted. Westark agreed to absorb both the Southern Baptist and YMCA programs. Advertisements were posted to locate paid employees. Most of the applicants were simply interested in the project or wanted summer employment. They were put on shifts to better organize the classes. While there were start-up problems, the program began to operate more smoothly after a few weeks. The first curriculum involved teaching the refugees language skills by having them listen to and repeat phrases from English magazines and newspapers. Teaching continued for a couple of months until Cameron, head of the project, realized that the situation needed improvement. With experience of the situation, he went back to HEW to renegotiate the contract. Westark was willing to continue with the English instruction and day care, but also wanted to hire and pay refugees as teachers’ aides. Even though they were badly needed as teachers’ aides, refugees were not issued work permits until they found sponsors in the United States. This delay slowed down the instructional program.