Two Iowa Staters, one faculty and one staff, requested removal of four more bricks from the Plaza of Heroines yesterday at a noon news conference held by the September 29th Movement in front of Catt Hall.

Carlie Tartakov, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, and her husband Gary, an associate professor of art and design, announced their request that the university remove the brick Mr. Tartakov donated in his wife’s name.

She is the first faculty member to request the removal of a brick in the Plaza of Heroines.

“We are requesting that the brick that was placed in my honor at the Hall of Heroines in the plaza to be removed.

“I no longer feel it rests in a place that honors me,” she said.

She said when the hall was named after Carrie Chapman Catt — an ISU alumnus instrumental in the women’s suffrage movement who has come under fire for allegedly making racist remarks — it was named in good faith. “But since that time we have learned that she stands for the rights of whites only.”

Muhammad Abdullah, a program coordinator for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, requested that the three bricks he donated for his wife, mother and grandmother also be removed.

He called Tuesday a “day of great irony.”

On Friday ISU President Martin Jischke announced Campaign Destiny, a fund-raising drive aimed, as Jischke said, “to be the best” land- grant institution in the nation.

“The best for who?” Abdullah asked Tuesday.

He said that despite the university’s efforts to improve itself, officials aren’t looking to where they need to improve the most to help lead the way for land-grant institutions in the 21st Century. That area, he said, is diversity.

The university is no longer one of the leaders in its views of diversity, he said. “I think we’ve moved philosophically from [black scientist George Washington] Carver to Catt.”

The announcement was made in front of a crowd of about 150 people who faced Catt Hall as Tartakov and Abdullah spoke.

It was the first time university officials heard the requests. The university removed two bricks in early August which had been purchased by the children of Blue Maas, a secretary in the graduate college; and Phyllis Harris, a graduate student in human development and family studies.

Milton McGriff, a member of the September 29th Movement, said the impact of the decisions by Tartakov and Abdullah will give them momentum going into the Sept. 29 weekend.

“We’ll keep turning up the volume until Dr. Jischke sees the errors of his ways.”

Another movement member, Meron Wondwosen, said, “Carrie Chapman Catt did not stand for women of color, and, therefore, it’s not an honor for people of color to have their bricks in this plaza.”

Although Abdullah and Tartakov said they had reached their decisions weeks ahead of yesterday’s news conference, the news came in the wake of a memo sent by Derrick Rollins, recently-appointed diversity adviser to Jischke’s cabinet, who urged the changing of the name.

A cabinet meeting was held Monday night, but Jischke was unable for comment Tuesday about Rollins’ memo.

Jischke said last week he would comment on the memo after speaking with Rollins.

Rollins said Tuesday morning that he had spoken with other cabinet members and Jischke, but he needed to speak with Jischke again before commenting further.