Under the baobab: If you left State College for the summer, here’s what you missed
The second act of the Broadway hit “Hamilton” begins with Thomas Jefferson returning from France singing, “What did I miss?” He had lived in Paris from 1784 to 1789. He missed quite a bit: the Constitutional Convention, the writing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the passing of the Bill of Rights, the election and inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States and John Adams as his vice president. Jefferson was even out of the country for his own appointment as the nation’s first secretary of state.
Many Penn State students, staff and faculty are returning to the State College area after a six-month absence. They might also want to inquire about what they have missed. The whole country has suffered through the worldwide pandemic, intense quarantine, economic depression, high unemployment, millions of our neighbors contracting the plague and nearly 200,000 dying. There have also been world protests against racial injustice.
In our community, there have been actions on all levels of civil society which address the issues of eradicating bias and white supremacy. There were several demonstrations for social justice organized by Black Lives Matter and the 3/20 Coalition. A couple of these have had nearly a thousand participants which is quite remarkable considering most college students were not in town.
In June, Penn State President Eric Barron organized a town hall to discuss the task of fighting ignorance and intolerance. The town hall included the three co-chairs of the Select Penn State Presidential Commission on Racism, Bias and Community Safety: Danielle Conway, dean of the Dickinson Law School; Clarence Lang, dean of the College of the Liberal Arts; and Elizabeth Seymour, chair of the University Faculty Senate and associate professor at Penn State Altoona. Also included were Brandon Short, member of the Penn State board of trustees, and Marcus Whitehurst, vice provost for educational equity. They emphasized the need to be more inclusive while embracing diversity.
Barron also announced several university initiatives: the creation of a $50,000 George Floyd Memorial Scholarship; an additional $50,000 to the Osaze Olufemi Osagie Memorial Scholarship; and the creation of a $10 million matching fund for diversity and equity scholarships.
The State College Borough Council led by its President Jesse Barlow, Mayor Ron Filippelli and Manager Tom Fountaine committed to: providing the needed resources for the formation of a community police oversight board; developing an ordinance that prohibits the use of chokeholds, strangleholds and knee restraints; and to hiring a borough equity officer. Robert O’Donnell, State College superintendent of schools announced that SCASD had “identified several areas of concern where we need to improve inclusivity — such as race, ethnicity, disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation — and taken steps to serve our students better. In addition to training employees in diversity and unconscious bias, our district is working closely with a steering team of community members, Penn State faculty experts, local clergy, parents, and students to obtain ideas for improving actions we take in our district. … We are asking you to stand with us in denouncing racism. Together, our unified school community will make a positive difference in the lives of our students and families.”
Cynthia Young and Mandy Vactor, parents and co-chairs of the district’s Race and Marginalized Populations Committee, developed an online petition based on “data, personal experience, community complaints” and conversations over the past two years with SCASD’s Equity and Inclusivity Director Dr. Seria Chatters. The petition included proposals to institute new disciplinary procedures designed to root out racism. Young and Vactor wrote: “We are not asking merely for anti-bias training. We are asking for meaningful reforms to curriculum, safety protocols and disciplinary policies that will better educate all of our students and better protect our students of color.” All of these are meaningful steps to combat institutional racism and provide justice and equity.
What else did our returning neighbors miss? The Borough Council passed an ordinance which requires that all people wear masks on the streets of town and that we all social distance. The university has similar requirements for in-person classes. We all know the fall football season has been postponed. In fact, so have all sports at Penn State. Most of the major professional sports have abbreviated schedules and are being played with no spectators in their stadiums. The Olympics in Japan have been postponed until next summer.
What haven’t they missed? The presidential election is two months away. It will be a major battle between the political philosophies of the current administration and former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris. The national census ends next month. Institutional racism, white supremacy and patriarchal privilege still remain in place.
Sisters and brothers, we are all trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Sadly, some believe, that light may be a freight train coming our way. I have lived on this planet for three-quarters of a century. I can assure you that we will get through these dark and dismal days. We must remember that we are a nation founded on dreams and hope. We are a belief system flawed at inception but perfectible through struggle. We are, at our base, a community that seeks the common good and tries to achieve it.