Dolita Cathcart: Celebrating Black History Month
As we enter Black History Month, I encourage us all to take time for reflection and action on the structures that shape young adulthood and students’ lives.
As a professor of history and a lifelong advocate for educational equity, I think it is helpful to begin with a shared understanding of historical context and implications for students today. Since the late 1970s, upper middle class and wealthy parents, who are disproportionately likely to be white due to structural racism and inequity, have engaged in more intensive parenting practices than any generation before. Put simply, parents’ fears that their kids will not get into an elite college and will fail to reproduce their social class have played a large role in ending free range childhood. This movement has resulted in parents hovering over kids like helicopters, wanting to be their kids’ best friends, only allowing their kids to participate in activities curated by adults, and staying in constant contact even after children leave home. All of this has interrupted how kids learned the skills needed to become independent of their parents, thus missing an important developmental phase in their lives.
Of course, not all students are lucky enough to be born with societal privilege. Undocumented students, low income students, students of color, and disabled students must all confront the constant drumbeat of discriminatory policies and practices that threaten to affect how they view themselves and how they are viewed in the world. If many wealthier kids suffer from not being independent enough, many marginalized students are raising their siblings while working several jobs to pay for college.
For years, business leaders have been blaming colleges for not training students to be effective in the workplace, but the problem is societal. Wealth is creating one set of problems for young people, and poverty and marginalization are exacerbating another set of problems. Through Semester in the City, College for Social Innovation is attempting to address both of these issues by providing college students with a structured opportunity to work, study, and increase their competence - and confidence - in their ability to navigate life as an independent, yet interconnected young adult.
Semester in the City is a transformational program. As a Wheaton faculty member and the College’s SITC coordinator for the past ten semesters, I have seen the impact firsthand for all students, and specifically for students who might otherwise have less access to high-impact learning and pre-professional development opportunities. In a nutshell, SITC is an apprenticeship to adulthood, and students return from the program with purpose, new skills, less anxiety, and a better understanding of how to navigate both college and life in general. While SITC may not be able to fix all of the structural inequities our students face, it is preparing its Fellows to be optimistic, empathetic, and innovative, and to believe in themselves, in their abilities, and their dreams. And that, in itself, is an act of resistance to celebrate.