Visits with Beverly Daniel Tatum, President Emerita of Spelman College, about Leadership, Her College Presidency, and the Contemporary Challenges That Face All Our Studentįrank Shushok, Jr., and Beverly Daniel Tatum “ Featured Articles About Campus Executive Editor, Frank Shushok, Jr. To put it simply, good fences may make good neighbors, but it’s the gates in them that open the way for friends. In my interview with Beverly Daniel Tatum, Spelman College’s President Emerita, she reminded me that “We know that when young people have the opportunity to engage in sustained dialogue over the course of the semester, we can get beyond discomfort to really start to understand the experiences of others, and hopefully become motivated to interrupt the cycle of racism and other ‘isms’ in our society.” Surprisingly, even unintentionally, my trips to the horse barn in Giles County are interrupting a potentially destructive cycle by enlarging my sustained experiences. As an educator, I’m realizing how easy it has been for me to insist that our students find relationships with those from different backgrounds without recognizing how challenging it can be. Yet even in my gratitude for these experiences, I must also acknowledge my own discomfort. “As many of you reading this may also concede, troubling times in which we fail to listen and understand others as fellow travelers on life’s journey sow the seeds of fear, hate, and sometimes violence.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |