Dr. Harry Dumay delivers the keynote address at the 6th annual Cultural Appreciation Week event outside the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield. (right) Dr. Harry Dumay stands with Massachusetts Trial Court Statewide Supervisor Lorna Spencer. (photos by Megan Eischen)
Remarks by Dr. Harry Dumay, Elms College president, in the keynote address for the Sixth Annual Cultural Appreciation Week 2022 on Oct. 24, 2022, at the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield.
Dr. Harry Dumay delivers the keynote address at the 6th annual Cultural Appreciation Week event outside the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield. (right) Dr. Harry Dumay stands with Massachusetts Trial Court Statewide Supervisor Lorna Spencer. (photos by Megan Eischen) On race and access, and the pursuit of social justice.
Remarks by Dr. Harry Dumay, Elms College president, in the keynote address for the Sixth Annual Cultural Appreciation Week 2022 on Oct. 24, 2022, at the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield.
I am truly honored to be here with you today, to celebrate Springfield’s Day of Cultural Appreciation. Thank you for the invitation.
The value of this gathering in today’s context cannot be overstated. It seems that our contemporary society thrives on pulling us apart. Social media and electronic platforms use algorithms to figure out how to inflame passions and organize us into Team X vs Team Y. Leaders at all levels in our increasingly polarized society are experiencing how hard it is to bring people together.
And so, I am particularly appreciative for the honor to be here with all these local leaders at this event which recognizes that multiculturalism and diversity are true strengths for our community. We are all connected; and the unity that we are experiencing today is the fertile ground that strengthens those connections and make them grow.
Some higher power brought us together in this day at this time, on this land, once inhabited by the Pocumtuk and Algonkian, or Agawam people. They hunted and grew crops here in the Pioneer Valley and fished the Connecticut River just steps from where we stand. Today, together, in this Valley, we raise our families, run businesses, educate children, care for the sick, and do the many things that we do in our quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And I do have to believe in a higher power, or Divine Providence, because when I was growing up, there is no way that I could envision that I would be here speaking with you today. I grew up in a remote town in Haiti, called Ouanaminthe. My own college journey was the fruit of Divine Providence.
And so, Horace Mann’s great quote that “education is the great equalizer of the conditions of men” is not abstract for me. The potential of education to transform lives, to give people a foothold on the ladder to opportunity and success is very real. The power of education to, at the very least, provide everyone freedom freedom of the mind- is inarguable. And so, that is why helping others with their education has become my life calling, and the life calling of all my colleagues at Elms College. And I am glad that the organizers of today’s event asked me to speak about bias, lack of diversity, and unequal access and inequitable resources available to diverse populations in the education sector. Therefore, I’ll speak briefly about inequities in our educational system then about some efforts to address those inequities in the higher education sector in general and at Elms College, in particular.
Unfortunately, we all know that there is not equal access to many opportunities in our society, but it is particularly true for education. I am privileged to have been involved with the Springfield School District’s Portrait of a Graduate project. Well aware of the statistics about how our young people, particularly our young people of color achieve in reading, writing, and career achievement, the Springfield School District has taken the challenge to ensure that our Springfield Schools prepare all students to compete at the highest level.
This is an important work for the future of our young people and I commend the Springfield School District for tackling it head-on.
It has been demonstrated that our society has created roadblocks and hurdles that have made it more difficult for certain groups to achieve educationally. The perverse vicious cycle that our young people have underachieved because of structural systems has reinforced stereotypes and prejudices, ensuring that the same situation continues. We have formed implicit biases, according to the work of Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banajee and her colleague Anthony Greenwald, about who succeeds, who does not succeed, and why.
The higher education sector has recognized that racial prejudices and structural discrimination affects everyone and weakens our society in so many ways. That is why universities and colleges across our area have recommitted to the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion—to the implementation of practices that embrace the complexities of students’ identities, viewing differing perspectives as not only an asset, but also essential to the business of teaching and learning.
The recent call to place questions of race and racism at the center of our journey toward a more equitable enterprise, exposes the stubborn hold that meritocracy, color blindness, neutrality, and a deficit view of learning have on the biased policies of old. But, it also forces us to raise questions of access, rights and engagement as we educate for social justice.
By intentionally building more welcoming and inclusive environments, we can open new spaces and opportunities to better understand who our students really are–we can hear them when they tell us what they need to survive and thrive.
Then we can begin to reimagine their educational experience, develop culturally sustaining teaching practices, and encourage a deeper and more courageous engagement with one another. As Desmond Tutu so elegantly proclaimed: “my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education has also elevated racial equity as its top policy and performance priority, which underscores the urgent need to acknowledge, remedy, and repair the policies and practices which have excluded or created barriers for students for generations. It is true that institutions of higher education in our region are responding to the changing demographics of our population, mirrored in the changing demographics of our campuses. For example, we are proud to say that close to 46% of the incoming class at Elms College are students of color. But we all know that it is not an easy task and much more needs to be done. A first step is to ensure that the faculty and staff in our institutions reflect the diversity in our student populations.
At Elms College, a central pillar of our mission is to educate a diverse group of students in a supportive, vibrant learning community. Elms College seeks to empower students to effect positive changes in the community and in the world.
Founded on the social justice principles of the Sisters of St. Joseph, we strive to honor their central tenet of “uniting neighbor with neighbor, without distinction.” We seek to do the work of advancing an equitable and just society not only within our campus community but also in our service to the region. The creation of the Cynthia A. Lyons Center for Equity in Urban Education is an example of that commitment. We know that one good teacher has a profound impact on children’s life outcomes. We also know that seeing educators and role models who look like them play an important role in shaping the dreams and aspirations that black and brown children have.
Thus, our academic center makes it possible for paraprofessional educators in the region to obtain their bachelor’s degrees and work toward their teaching licensure. It also gives teachers or anyone else with a bachelor’s degree the ability to pursue their master of arts in teaching degree. The goal of this important work is to increase the diversity in the pipeline of educators who are well-qualified to teach successfully our children and young people in the Pioneer Valley, particularly those in the urban centers of Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke.
In many other ways, through our Office of Diversity and Inclusion, through public lecture series such as the Black Experience Summit, and through our engagement with the wider community, we seek to be of service to the Greater Springfield area. By living up to the College’s core values of justice, community, faith and excellence, we also hope that Elms College will contribute to Pioneer Valley’s common quest to ensure that our multicultural society thrives. As with the rest of the higher education sector, we are on our way but we still have much work to do.
On this day that celebrates the appreciation of the cultural contribution of all of us to the richness of our life as a community, I cannot but think of the way in which the late Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis urged us to continue to move forward in that effort. John Lewis was not compromising in his commitment to justice and equality. “Each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out,” he said.
But what motivated John Lewis most of all, was not rancor or grievances but lovea love for all his fellow human beings because he believed that whatever diminishes one of us diminishes all of us; and whatever makes one of us more fully human does the same for all of us. The historian Jon Meacham wrote that for Lewis, though, “love remained the constant and essential element in the unfolding drama of liberty versus captivity.” And as Lewis himself explained: “We really believed that through the… power of peace and the power of love… we could transform this nation into something Martin Luther King Jr. called a ‘Beloved Community.’”
On this cultural appreciation day, let us heed John Lewis’ call to love. Let us buck the trend of everything that aims to divide us and let us work together for the ideals of justice, inclusion, and opportunity for all; as we all advance in our common quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Greater Springfield area and the Pioneer Valley.
Thank you.
Dr. Harry Dumay
Oct. 24, 2022