Editor, Commonwealth:
Colleges and universities in Mississippi are becoming more diverse and integrated with non-African American students attending the state’s historically Black universities and with African Americans attending the larger institutions of higher learning.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic could have negatively impacted this enrollment, COVID-19 could also serve as a catalyst for positively growing enrollment by bringing both populations to higher education and learning on campus and in person as well as off campus and online. In both cases, we must encourage all students to be engaged, involved, inspired and enlightened by their exchanges, whether they are on campus or online.
Joseph Martin Stevenson
The very nature, scope, core and essence of higher learning is to engage, to involve, and to enlighten all students in higher order and critical thinking so we can address the challenges of contradiction, hypocrisy, mystery, irony and injustice. We must mitigate against the barriers, borders and boundaries of COVID-19, and institutionalize ways, wherewithal and windows of opportunities to bring people together, especially in other-race, other-gender, other-ethnicity, other-orientation and other-culture conditions or situations.
First, there must be diversity appointments in administration, leadership and management. Second, there must be diversity integrated in curriculum, instruction and student learning outcomes. Third, there must be diversity in student enrollment, retention, matriculation and persistence toward degree completion. Fourth, there must be diversity in staff employment, retention, growth and development. Fifth, there must be implicit and explicit evidence of diversity in the institution’s ethos, ecosystem and environment to sustain academic climate, to understand culture within our clerisy, and to maintain a collegial sense of community. We may begin with debate and disagreement about critical race theory, but we must culminate and complete our discussions and discourse with resolve about human diversity to help confront and face exploding, extending and expanding division, divide, disruption and decisiveness.
Perhaps this could be a worthy goal for next week’s beginning of Black History Month for a bigger picture, a greater good, a larger context and a higher purpose.
Joseph Martin Stevenson
Madison
Editor’s note: Joseph Martin Stevenson is a former provost at Mississippi Valley State University.
