To view the multimedia features on this page, you will need to download the latest version of Flash Player and/or enable JavaScript.

Video Closed Captions

(music)

Narrator:
Carl Fields became the first African American administrator

Narrator:
at a predominantly white university rising to the

Narrator:
position of assistant dean of the college.

Narrator:
He served Princeton in many capacities from 1964 to 1972

Narrator:
and was an advocate for underrepresented students and

Narrator:
staff. Fields created the Family Sponsor program that paired

Narrator:
black undergraduates with black families in the town of

Narrator:
Princeton. In 2002, the Third World Center

Narrator:
got a new name, the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality & Cultural Understanding,

Narrator:
in honor of his enormous contributions to Princeton.

Narrator:
In September of 2009, a new facility was opened at 58 Prospect Ave.

Narrator:
It will house the operations of the Carl Fields Center and Community House.

Debbie Scott Williams:
Princeton has changed me for the better,

Debbie Scott Williams:
to make me see that there are possibilities everywhere --

Debbie Scott Williams:
if you are willing to look for those,

Debbie Scott Williams:
if you're willing to work for those.

Janice Johnston:
Staying connected is a very important thing, and that has

Janice Johnston:
benefited me both professionally, spiritually,

Janice Johnston:
personally. Um, I think that's the biggest

Janice Johnston:
life lesson I take away from here is to stay connected.

Bathabile Mthombeni:
I loved being at Princeton.

Bathabile Mthombeni:
It was an opportunity for me to explore.

Bathabile Mthombeni:
It was an opportunity for me to learn how to face challenges

Bathabile Mthombeni:
and to make an argument and to stand behind it.

Bathabile Mthombeni:
It was an opportunity for me to learn how to be brave about

Bathabile Mthombeni:
standing against the tide of convention.

Ken Bruce:
I became more comfortable with taking responsibility for things

Ken Bruce:
that happened around me and to me.

Monica Dweck:
In my field, which is a very "male" field, which is a very

Monica Dweck:
"white" field, for me to be a woman of color

Monica Dweck:
at the time that I was entering medicine was unusual.

Monica Dweck:
To be a women of color to enter the specialty that I have

Monica Dweck:
chosen, I think Princeton has helped with all of that.

Reid Whitlock:
I've gotten self-confidence.

Reid Whitlock:
I've been willing to stand up for what I felt was the point of

Reid Whitlock:
view that maybe wasn't being articulated but needed to be heard.

Tara Harper:
Not all white people are the

Tara Harper:
devil. I learned that. Um,

Tara Harper:
there are actually good white people in the world.

Brian Johnson:
That's what the true test here is. It's not learning some

Brian Johnson:
chemistry, or it's not learning journalism, or it's not

Brian Johnson:
learning, you know, how to play the game.

Brian Johnson:
It's learning how to stand up to the pressure of an

Brian Johnson:
institution, or the pressure of a culture,

Brian Johnson:
or the pressure of, you know, history and still

Brian Johnson:
finding a place for yourself in that without compromising yourself.

Kim Goodwin:
I didn't come from an economic

Kim Goodwin:
background where I knew anything about Wall Street,

Kim Goodwin:
and it just wasn't the norm, you know, for our family.

Kim Goodwin:
So, I wouldn't be doing this for a living,

Kim Goodwin:
running global equities for a $500 billion firm,

Kim Goodwin:
if I hadn't been protesting "Dollar-Bill Bowen,"

Kim Goodwin:
you know, outside Nassau Hall every day with my buddies.

Celeste Brickler Hart:
The friendships I made were

Celeste Brickler Hart:
very important to me and kind of sustained me through everything else.