On Saturday October 29th, I had the privilege of attending the Adversity in Diversity Forum: Moving Beyond Barriers at Babson College. I’m not a fan of spending precious weekend days in conference halls. However, this one was well worth it.
Organized by Babson MBA candidates Flora Ekpe-Idang and Mark Gagliardi, the first-ever convening drew participants from Babson and other Boston-area universities, as well as speakers and audience members from across the US. Unlike too many diversity events, it was a remarkably candid, open, and warm give-and-take involving the stellar speakers, panelists, and attendees. Opening keynote speaker and Reinventure friend Jennifer Gilhool provided provocative and actionable exercises that set the tone by engaging everyone in the room, and each subsequent panel built powerfully on the conversation as the day progressed. It was extraordinary.
Unfortunately the event was not captured on video, so you’ll just have to stay tuned for a possible repeat next year. However, Babson VP for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Lawrence Ward has graciously granted permission to share his eloquent welcoming comments with you. Enjoy.
ADVERSITY IN DIVERSITY FORUM:
MOVING BEYOND BARRIERS
Opening Remarks by Dr. Lawrence P. Ward, Vice President for Student Affairs
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Olin Graduate School of Business
Babson College
I am honored and very pleased to be here this morning to kick off the inaugural Adversity in Diversity Forum: Moving Beyond Barriers at Babson College. In particular, I want to acknowledge Babson Black MBA, Out Network, MENA, BAWMBA, Net Impact, and Usurpers for all of the work that went into conceiving, organizing and incubating and delivering what promises to be a thought-provoking and essential set of discussions throughout the day.
I especially want to recognize Flora Ekpe-Idang and Mark Gagliardi. In my judgment, you all have pursued this event with a steadfast passion and devotion to advancing Babson’s progression toward a more learned and inclusiveness community. I’m grateful and inspired by your leadership. I know that you’re not doing this for any selfish reason. You’re not trying to serve some political or personal ambition. But rather as Dr. King described (you’ve done this) to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old institution, a new institution.
Last fall, as students on college campuses across the country sounded notes of protest, frustration, disenfranchisement and anger about the lack of diversity and not feeling fully included at their institutions, our own student body also stood up and courageously spoke up about the need for a more inclusive and diverse Babson.
In thinking about my remarks this morning, I have been reminded how this forum along with the student petition last year are connected to a rich history of higher education, particularly the role of college students in organizing themselves to affect social change and justice. I think about February 1, 1960 when 4 courageous students decided that they wanted to be served at a segregated lunch counter in a Woolworth’s department store. The students from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro were denied service at the lunch counter. The next day 27 other African American students showed up and (again) sat at the ‘white only’ lunch counter expecting to be served. Over the next several days, more than 300 students from North Carolina A&T, Bennett College, Greensboro Women’s College, and a local high school (Dudley High) showed up and sat down.
As you can imagine, serious tension grew between white customers and these African American students at that lunch counter. The students were subjected to vicious name calling and violent threats of physical abuse and death. So, you know what happened next? The students came back to the Woolworth’s lunch counter accompanied by most of North Carolina A&T’s football team. They say that there is nothing like size to measure the impact of a good protest. A bomb threat ultimately ended the week of protest, but the incident sparked similar sit-ins by college students throughout the south. In fact, the sit-in became a staple of civil disobedience and led to significant social change in civil rights including the full integration of the lunch counter at the Greensboro Woolworths on July 26, 1960.
And so for you students, I think it is essential for you to understand how this diversity forum is directly descendant from a history of social justice on a college campus that is many decades old. I am more convinced than ever that you need to understand the importance of history and your own place within the context of that history. I am a student of history (especially the history of higher education) because I am innately fascinated by what the past has to say about the present. I believe that our collective past in so many ways shapes, inspires, and provides context for our future.
So indeed, your presence here today (regardless of the numbers) represents a collective call not only for more faculty and students of color especially within the graduate school, a stronger and more demonstrable commitment to multiculturalism in the curricula, and greater clarity of institutional purpose to break down cultural barriers and work better — together – to address some of today’s most pressing diversity and inclusion issues including Race, Gender, and Sexuality, to Immigration, Islamophobia, and Mental Health with a vision to promote cultural consciousness, competence, and coalescence.
The great educator, W.E.B. Dubois, once said that education ought to do three things. It ought to build our character, increase our knowledge, and help us to earn a living. However, too many of us in positions of authority and influence on college campuses have allowed that equation to be turned upside down. We have put earning a living on top and building character on the bottom we can quickly lose sight of your own personal, cultural, and institutional history.
When we lose sight of our own history in higher education, then we fall victim to the melting pot analogy. The melting pot analogy requires that the people who look, speak, celebrate, dance, act, love and think differently to do the most melting. The beauty of our shared experiences on college campuses in this country is not that we are all ultimately the same, but rather that we can learn to appreciate how each of us is wonderfully different. I think history matters because it provides a special kind of thread that allows us to weave our institutional, cultural, religious, ethnic, racial, gender, geopolitical, and downright personal differences into a more a meaningful whole. History also is important because it also gives us the space to reflect and focus on that which inspires, motivates, and convinces us to shake off our fears and misgivings and stand up (or sit down). I think that history asks nothing less from each of us.
So, throughout our forum today and in the weeks and months ahead I invite you to engage meaningfully and respectfully in this campus imperative to be more inclusive. Challenge your own assumptions, participate in an uncomfortable discussion, reach out, discover commonalities, debate, argue, and disagree but always listen. Most importantly, commit to learning something new. And, I hope that you have a positive, productive, and fun day.
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