Across the nation, you will find colleges and universities engaged in “giving back” to the “community” in all manner of ways, one of those being through programs and initiatives they work in partnership with area elementary, middle and/or high schools.
Some of these initiatives have been one-and-done, i.e. here today and gone tomorrow. Others have been doing good work in their respective cities for years, even decades.
The Greater Houston area, blessed with many colleges and universities, has countless examples of such programs. But this isn’t the article to spotlight those programs. Rather, this is a call to any of those educational power brokers out there with the ear to hear that such programs have been the exception for far too long. It’s time they become the rule.
And here’s why:
Haters Always Be Hatin’
The issues that prompt colleges and universities to “answer the call” and provide some level of services to a local school or community center aren’t going away any time soon. And those entities and individuals whose actions and policies bring harm of our communities will continue doing what they’ve always done – hate on us via anti-Black, anti-Hispanic, anti-children, anti-environment, anti-education, anti-female, and anti-humanity actions. So, this idea of waiting for the next shoe to fall or the next George Floyd to get killed makes no sense. Being proactive with these joint programs can even create conditions to not only lessen the hater madness, but reduce the chances that those negative powers and principalities can have the impact on our communities they’ve had in the past.
This is a Protracted Struggle
And to that point, we’ve got to recognize that, like it or not, we are engaged in a protracted struggle. This means the best we can do is do the best we can do with the time we have. It’s our job as humans who respect all humanity to run our leg of the race with everything we have, and then pass the baton to the next generation in a better position than we received it. If that’s the case, and it absolutely is the case, then it makes no sense to have piecemeal programs that come and go. These initiatives, whether they are mentor programs, tutoring sessions or opportunities to expose K-12 students to various fields, theoretically, they will only get better and more efficient with time at doing what they do. If that’s the case, it’s all the more reason that such collaborations become a regular part of how our educational institutions roll.
Investing In Self a No-Brainer
In baseball terms, the “farm system” for colleges’ and universities’ future talent is the K-12 universe of schools. And more specifically, with this nation’s demographics changing rapidly, getting younger and darker and more progressive by the second (Black, Hispanic, East Indian and Asian populations growing while the white population is at a standstill with births and deaths being pretty much equal), college investments of time, talents and resources into public schools – the schools where the majority of these children of color attend – are literally investments in themselves. The future students, professors, alumni and community partners are currently in K-12 classrooms. This is a no-brainer that makes too much sense. Colleges and universities should literally be living in these schools to make sure they have the resources necessary to create successful, intellectually curious, talented young people who are ready to change the world.
We Can Do More Together
The ancient African wisdom of Ubuntu basically says, “I am because we are, and because we are, therefore, I am.” This recognition that we need each other, that colleges and universities need the K-12 educational universe and vice versa, is just another reminder that we are interconnected and co more together than we can apart. That said, colleges and universities should make the allocation of resources for these programs part of their standard operating procedure.
