Princeton University renames two campus buildings after two Black Nobel laureates to honor their contributions to the school. In fact, the officials label them as people who have brought "a more diverse presence" on campus in a truly epic way.
The Nobel Prize is a set of an annual international awards meant to acknowledge academic, cultural, political, or scientific advances. Some of the great black Americans that have been awarded include Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama. Ralph Bunche, Inkosi Albert John Luthuli, Anwar El Sadat, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Wangari Maathai, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Leyma Gbowee are also on the list.
Now, per Princeton University, the icons chosen to be the name of two school facilities are Toni Morrison and Sir Arthur Lewis. Morrison's name will appear on the residence previously known as West College. For the record, she was the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize for literature. Moreover, she taught humanities and African-American courses at Princeton during the 1990s.
On the other hand, the Dodds Auditorium will be renamed after Lewis, a former faculty member who served from 1963 to 1983. He is also a renowned economist with the same Nobel distinction. The auditorium was previously named after a former white president of the university.
For the record, according to the Atlanta Black Star, the retitling of the buildings was the idea of the Council of the Princeton University Community Committee on Naming. It is composed of faculty, students, staff, and even the alumni. Launched in the fall of 2016, the committee was formed to "aid trustees" in the naming of facilities after historical figures or donors to acknowledge the ones who brought "a more diverse presence" to the campus.
In a recent statement, the school administration stressed that Lewis "is someone who brought distinction" to Princeton for so many years. Sadly, his accomplishments and impact on the world have been forgotten especially by the modern Princetonians. Thus, the university believes it is time to bring back the glory days of the two great human beings.
