We can do better

I was born June 24, 1968. Eighty-two days before my birth, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech in Memphis (“I’ve been to the mountain top.”). He was assassinated a day later. Chaos and unrest ensued across American cities. All throughout the spring of 1968, demonstrators in Prague demanded “socialism with a human face” and were crushed by Soviet tanks in August. In May 1968, the barricades went up in Paris as students called for a more just society.

In June, a hopeful Robert Kennedy won the Democratic primary in California and was murdered minutes after his victory speech. By August, police and protestors battled in Chicago’s Grant Park while “the whole world was watching.” In November, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew (with the “Now More than Ever” campaign slogan) eked out an electoral victory. By year’s end, according to the CDC, more than 1 million people worldwide (and 100,000 in the U.S.) had died of a pandemic, the H3N2 virus.

And now here we are in 2020. History is in the making. The images are no less powerful and the pain is no less real than it was 52 years ago. COVID-19. Economic crisis. Political turmoil in the U.S. and around the world. Black Lives Matter.

We are now confronted with a big, difficult question in the midst of confusion that cries out for an answer: “How can we do better?” And that means a better college, a better society, a better country and a better world.

At Ripon, we are getting ready for the fall semester by proactively examining every facet of academic and residential life to comply with the new public health reality. A team of administrators, faculty and staff are thinking about how to implement and take action on the watch words: mitigation, reasonable risk, thoughtful, careful and responsive. Ripon-logo face masks. Social distancing. Assigned seating. New rules in the Commons for meals. A revised academic calendar. No added tuition for returning students. Using all of our resources to make sure Ripon is affordable. And building a stronger and closer partnership with Ripon Medical Center. Ripon plans to open in August. But it won’t be business as usual for another reason as well.

The Black Lives Matter movement, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the international cry for equality also has prompted us to take an overdue look in the mirror. Institutions (and the people who lead them) have a responsibility to make sure deeds match words. A team of faculty, staff, administrators and students will be working this summer to examine our hiring practices, admission and retention rates, how we award financial aid and use Student Support Services to provide recommendations about how we can do better. It is time to listen, understand and respond. We need to move beyond the statements of support and solidarity and become a more fair and inclusive college and nation.

The work ahead is not going to be easy. The solutions likely will take many of us out of our comfort zones. But isn’t that what Ripon College is all about? Isn’t that what being educated and learned are all about? Study. Listen. Debate. Collaborate. Analyze. Find solutions and experiment until we get it right. We can do better.

ZACH MESSITTE PRESIDENT

A flu-related government ad from early 1919 in The Ripon Weekly Press, a precursor to the Ripon Commonwealth Press of today.