Diversity and Affirmation

When I lived in Chicago, I sang with the Community Renewal Chorus, which included members from all ethnic groups, religions and socio-economic groups in the Chicago area. Our mission was community building through music, and we took diverse music to promote understanding to a wide variety of community settings. The most important -- and most difficult -- work we did, however, was to model the world we wanted to see through our behavior with each other. We learned not to cluster in groups of our own ethnicity, but to "lean in" to understand others. We learned how to disagree with respect. We learned how to teach each other about our cultures and values. We learned to overcome discomfort because we did not have shared experiences growing up, and to turn that discomfort into an opportunity to learn. We learned that you can never fully understand another's pain, you can only validate that they feel it.

We live in very troubled times. Injustice is all around us, violence is too often present in our own communities and throughout the world. People are killed, wars are fought, lives are destroyed, all because someone is perceived as different, as "The Other": A different ethnic group, a different skin color, a different language, a different religion, a different love, a different country of origin. Sexual and other forms of slavery are present world wide, affecting women, men and children alike.

History is full of inhumanity. One people after another is subjected to insults, exclusion and even murder because they are seen as different. All such actions must be condemned, in all times, in all places and for all peoples.

What is the role of colleges and universities in all this? We are not free from our cultural bonds, our legacies of founders who perpetrated injustices, years when we excluded women, people of color, people who did not come from comfortable economic circumstances and many others for reasons such as religion and sexual orientation.

We have come a long way and we have a long way to go. The concerns raised by students around the U.S. in recent weeks remind us of how far we have yet to go to achieve parity and a level playing field for students, faculty and all employees who are part of our academic world. All of us need to examine our institutions and ask what we need to do to be the example of people from many backgrounds coming together with respect for each other and maximum opportunities for learning and growth in a strong, supportive, multicultural, pluralistic environment.

Today's colleges and universities face a deep obligation to confront and understand many truths -- yes, truths around areas of traditional knowledge and inquiry, but also truths about our history and our society today. We must fully examine all those truths, not only the truths that we like, or speak to us. In the Middle Ages, universities kept knowledge alive in the face of societies full of war and injustices. Today, we must preserve knowledge and freedom of speech while constantly testing that knowledge and ensuring that freedom of speech means speaking when we disagree, and speaking when we see injustice, even as we struggle to reconcile our definitions of injustice.

All groups must be included in our affirmation of the need for respect and opportunities for all. If we accept that equity and diversity efforts focus only on one or two groups, we are endorsing the idea that it is acceptable to ignore discrimination against other groups. If we do this, we set ourselves up to see "The Other" as not worthy of the respect and opportunities we expect, and groups are discriminated against over and over again, throughout history. Somehow, this concept needs to be part of the lessons learned from the national dialogue.

The Sage Colleges was founded by a woman who believed in the right to education for a group that was denied access to education by most private colleges of her time, a group that was denied access to many jobs and career opportunities as well, a group that had not yet won their quest for the right to vote. In 1916, that group was women.

Today, nearly one hundred years later, Sage continues to provide opportunities for those who might not otherwise be able to attend college. Women and men from diverse ethnic groups, cultures, sexual orientations, religions and socioeconomic groups are welcomed at Sage, where nearly all of our students receive financial aid. We are working hard to further diversify our faculty and staff to better mirror a very diverse student body, a process that takes longer as employees do not turn over every 4-6 years as do students. At Sage, and at academic institutions everywhere, we need to work harder than ever at creating an environment of respect and support for all.

Colleges and universities can be communities that model the world we want to see: Just as with the chorus in Chicago, it is possible to have communities of respect for each other and all people, communities of honest and open dialogue, communities of understanding, communities of scholarship that produce future leaders of influence, and communities that affirm justice and peace. Both the world we model and the leaders we produce must be a force for change.

Susan C. Scrimshaw, PhD

President, The Sage Colleges

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