2008-2009 PRESIDENT'S REPORT - Berea College

two persistent criticisms: first, Berea’s focus on blacks and
whites is outdated and we should focus on “diversity” instead;
and second, Berea should move entirely beyond race or
diversity to a “colorblind” community and ethos. My reply is
usually to ask a question: Has overt and covert racism directed
against those with dark skin (regardless of race or nationality)
truly been eliminated from our American and global cultures?
As city after city in America becomes more and more
segregated in housing and public schools, and as black and
white racial violence across America has persisted, is Berea’s
work in this area done? For example, the veiled threats and
racist responses to the 2008 presidential election made it clear
that racism is still very much alive in America. Berea’s voice of
reconciliation was needed 154 years ago and continues to be
needed in our day.
Berea has a legacy in black/white education that few
colleges in America have—and we have only recently recovered
essential components of that legacy. After the repeal of the
Kentucky Day Law in 1950, Berea College’s African American
student population hovered between 4-8 percent for more than
40 years despite campus and trustee commitments to increase
our racial diversity. Only in the last 10 years have we achieved
our steady 18-20 percent African American student enrollment,
and that success is due in no small part to a strategic planning
O’Neil Arnold, ’85
process that has made it clear that educating black and white
students together is a core part of Berea’s mission. Furthermore,
our particular focus on developing mutual respect and
understanding between blacks and whites has opened our
doors to students from all parts of America and the world—
and continues to do so today.
In my early summers in Berea, I spent many hours in
the College archives reading the speeches and writings of our
early founders. I quickly came to understand that Berea’s
mission has many interrelated elements (i.e., its Appalachian
focus, interracial education, the economic need of students,
coeducation, the importance of labor, and a balanced program
of the liberal arts and professional studies), and that all of these
core elements are derived from John G. Fee’s inclusive
understanding of the Christian scriptures. But I also came to
understand that Berea’s mission is unique only in the
complex fusion of all of these mission elements—not in
any one element alone.
During our conversations on campus and with the board
of trustees about the “New Berea” scenarios that can implement
Berea’s mission in our day, no challenge will be greater than to
remember and insist upon the preservation of the
complex set of interrelated elements that together
make the mission and character of Berea College
unique. We must not succumb to the temptation to lift
up individual elements of the mission independent
from the others. Imagine if we had tinkered with separate
elements of our mission during the past decade so that we no
longer called ourselves inclusively Christian, or expressed our
interracial commitment in the diluted language of “diversity” as
embraced by most other colleges in America, or did not include
Appalachia in our admissions and service focuses.
Instead, our strategic plan, Being and Becoming: Berea
College in the 21st Century, sought to implement the whole of
Berea’s mission in all of its complexity. As a result, the
College has gained ground in every core area and in its
collective accomplishments. We must continue that discipline
in our upcoming scenario conversations to honor the whole of
Berea’s mission and thereby retain the power of its uniqueness.
In our scenario discussions, we must keep our complex
and unique mission forward in our thinking as we consider new
wineskins for our venerable and aged wine. What has been
surprising to some readers is that the initial drafts of the
proposed scenarios do not offer more conceptually different
“New Bereas.” The simple reason is that each of the scenarios
seeks to maintain all of the elements of Berea’s current,
complex mission. It was not the Taskforce’s charge to seek
alternative missions. However, each scenario offers new
emphases in applying Berea’s traditional mission in a 21st
century world and in new structures that are more flexible and
sustainable. Many will find some of the recommendations to be
quite radical, but, we must not mistake programs,
positions, or institutional structures that implement
Berea’s mission for the mission itself.
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BEREA COLLEGE MAGAZINE : FALL 2009