A Vision for This Place

Concordia’s third president, Rev. Dr. William Poehler, envisioned that the college might better reflect the increasingly diverse community around it. In 1968, CSP launched the Metropolitan Teacher Education Preparation Selection (MTEPS), which was designed to prepare students of color as educators in local public schools. Rev. David Hill, BA ’71 was part of the first MTEPS cohort and shared his story in an oral history recorded by Dr. Paul Hillmer, BA ‘83, professor of history.

David shares what he experienced first stepping onto campus:

"I remember taking my stuff to the dorm, and on my way back to get some of my stuff that I had left, a tall white youth approached me, and he said, ‘Hi, my name is Darrell, and I’m from Frederick, South Dakota. I have seen black people on TV, but I have never met one in person, and I want to meet you.’ And so I looked at him, and I was about to tell him to shove off, but then I changed my mind and said, ‘OK. Let’s go someplace and have a Coke.’

And so that’s what we did. We went to the student canteen, had a Coke, and we sat there and talked for about an hour and a half…To this day we stay in contact with each other all the time.

There were some [students] who were open to having black students on campus, and there were quite a few that were not. But since we didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother us kind of situation. "

After the launch of the MTEPS program, an independent Lutheran newspaper published an offensive article about the program which caused a stir amongst the CSP community, especially the MTEPS students. Here is how the students responded:

"…[T]he article just basically said, ‘Concordia’s going downhill. They are recruiting minority students who are D and F students from other places, and they’ll never make it.’

So, Brenda [Alston, BA ‘71] and I were given the job of going and talking to Dr. Poehler, who was the president at that time…what he told us was, ‘I can’t do anything about that article, about what people say. This is a university. This school is going to become a multicultural school, that’s my goal. And I don’t want you to allow anything like that to bother you or inhibit you from getting a good education here. And that’s all I need to say is we support you. Regardless of anything else that happens outside this campus or on this campus, we support you here.’ "

With the support of Poehler and the CSP administration, David and Brenda had an idea: not only would they succeed in getting good grades, but they would also work to complete their degrees in three years. David describes their strategy:

And so Brenda and I left and went downstairs where the other students were still sitting on the stoop and around, and we told them, ‘In order for us to change that attitude, why don’t we just show them that we are not D and F students? Let’s be good students...And I know that we had sat down with Maurice Britts, who recruited us, and talked to him about how that would happen. I know that we went to all of the classes and divvied classes up to see what we would have to take each quarter to pull this off.

In 1971, four MTEPS students, including David, achieved that goal and graduated in three years. David reflects on Poehler’s impact on CSP serving a diverse student body:

What I respect is the fact that what Dr. Poehler started came through to fruition…and each president that came after kept that fire burning, kept that fire burning.

Around the same time the college launched MTEPS, CSP made the decision to remain in the Lex-Ham community, rather than move out of the city as other local institutions had done. The success of the MTEPS program enabled CSP to establish the Southeast Asian Teacher Program in 1998, which provided pathways for Hmong students to become licensed educators. These and other efforts to foster an ethnically diverse student population have resulted in CSP fulfilling Poehler’s bold vision.

Interview: Courtesy of Dr. Paul Hillmer

Photos: Concordia St. Paul Archives