Coming Home: When two sisters gave UC a second chance, African American students weren’t the only winners

By Cindy Starr

Originally, the road to UC for Brenda Woods, A&S ’80, and her sister, Audrey Woods, A&S ’82, was a short two-mile trip from their home in Cincinnati to the Clifton campus. As alumnae, they found the figurative road back to their alma mater far longer. Reconnecting with their university required a change of heart and an intellectual leap of faith.

The UC that Brenda and Audrey experienced as African Americans in the late ’70s and early ’80s was far different from the UC of today. Although there was a strong Black subculture that included fraternity and sorority life, the Black Arts Festival and community service outlets, support services for Black students were few, and racial bias could be stinging and overt. At that time the terms “equity and inclusion” were many years away from becoming integral to the university’s culture. 

“We always felt that our demographic was not embraced,” Audrey reflected. “In general, I felt that I was tolerated as a student, but not embraced. When we graduated in the ‘80s, we held the same opinion as our peer group, vowing never to support any UC program or initiative.”

That changed years later when Brenda and Audrey saw first-hand UC’s commitment to racial equity, reflected most impressively in the African American Cultural & Resource Center (AACRC). Today, as philanthropists and creators of the Brenda and Audrey Woods Fund within the UC Foundation, the sisters want to ensure that UC continues to develop as an environment where African American students are valued and nurtured. The Woods Fund, which launched in 2017, supports AACRC initiatives.

“We wanted to give back, because we would have appreciated support like that,” Audrey said. “We would have valued a center where we could go to ask questions.”

The experience was formative. “Our mother told us what to expect and how to react during that time of racial unrest,” Brenda said. “She said you don’t hate people because of the color of their skin. People will be mean to you, but you don’t have to be mean to them. It wasn’t a heavy conversation, but an important one, and it equipped us to deal with a hostile environment.”

Audrey recalled, “In the second grade, a boy thought he was going to beat me up because I was Black.” It was Audrey, however, who proved to be the winner. In sixth grade she was selected Girl Student of the Year. 

Brenda and Audrey later gained admission to Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati’s rigorous public college preparatory school, which is regularly named as one of the best high schools in the nation. 

Brenda, the first to graduate, recalled that although Walnut Hills prepared her academically, it did not prepare her socially “to interact with people who are against you.” Walnut Hills, which was decades ahead of its time in celebrating socio-economic, racial and religious diversity, was “like Oz,” Brenda said. UC, she quickly discovered, was not.

It began at registration, when a UC staff member tried to direct her toward the two-year University College, a remedial program that no longer exists. “My mother had a fit,” Brenda said. “She told them, ‘I don’t write checks to two-year situations where they’re doing fourth-grade math.’ 

“At that time they were steering any Black face to University College,” Brenda continued. “That was tracking. My grades didn’t indicate University College, nor did my family’s income. Odds were if you went to University College you wouldn’t be graduating from the university. I had to explain that I was the middle fifth of my class — but at Walnut Hills that’s a 3.0 grade point average. I had a solid B average. Many Black students who started with me at UC, who didn’t have a good support base or a strong gut, did not graduate.”

Brenda, who loved to read, decided she would major in English, a decision that brought its own challenges. She recalled that upon arriving at one of her very first classes, the professor looked at her quizzically and asked, “What are you doing here? Are you lost?”

The professor’s comments, Brenda said, reflected “the prevailing climate many Black students were faced with.”

When Audrey arrived two years later, her welcome tour of the university came from Brenda, not a staff member. Audrey majored in psychology and logged enough credits in African American studies to qualify for a minor, although she didn’t know it at the time. While holding a part-time job, she also didn’t know that students could drop a class if their course load proved too heavy. The penalty for not knowing: the only F she ever received.

Both sisters said they engaged in gamesmanship to get through college. Nevertheless, both found encouragement and support within UC’s African American Studies Department. “That’s where I learned so much and was able to talk to my professors,” Audrey said. “They didn’t give me a pass just because I’m Black. They challenged you, and you had to do the work, but they embraced you.”

At the same time, Audrey and Brenda both relished UC’s Black subculture. They became members of the Omicron Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, whose motto, “Sisterhood, Scholarship and Service to all Mankind,” informed their campus experience.  

For Brenda and Audrey, philanthropy involves “reaching back to make sure you can go forward.” They plan to continue reaching out and bringing Black graduates back into the Bearcat fold. Said Audrey: “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just give the wheel some juice. I’m going to give back because I want to see something that wasn’t there for me. They need the AACRC. That’s the place I could have gone to with my questions — a place where I would have been embraced.”

Brenda Woods and Audrey Woods have emerged as two of our more faithful alumni and donors. If you would like to contribute to their efforts to support the university, donate today to the Woods Fund.