A retired dean of the MSU College of Urban Development was honored by the MSU Black Alumni Association this weekend for his work in education and activism.?
Robert L. Green, a dean emeritus and former associate of Martin Luther King Jr., was honored at an event in Lansing to celebrate Green’s 80th birthday and to help raise funds for the Robert L. Green Scholarship Fund. Green also received a “distinguished alumnus” award.
Green’s leadership and activism at MSU began when he joined the faculty in 1960 as an educational psychology instructor.
In 1965, he took a leave of absence from the university to work as the education director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where he first associated with King and his staff.?
Green was involved in organizing several education initiatives that supported campaigns for black voting rights.?
During the early 1970s, Green led a coalition of scholars and athletes in a campaign that challenged the hiring practices of the Big Ten athletic conference. The success of this campaign was enough of a push for the Big Ten to hire the first African Americans to officiate football games at member universities, according to a statement from the MSU Black Alumni Association.?
Green also served as the director of MSU’s Center for Urban Affairs from 1968 to 1973, leading and supervising research and outreach projects and assembling and managing the center’s staff. In 1973, he became the dean for the MSU College of Urban Development, a position that he held until 1982.
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