SXSWEDU 2018: Building a Higher Ed Movement

[Me: Scrolling through the sessions I had selected on my conference mobile app]

There is a pattern in the things I was interested in. I had checked a lot of sessions that dealt with narrowing inequity and addressing social injustice on My Favorites list. And my favoritest of favorites is the one by the President of Paul Quinn College, Michael Sorrell. He delivered a moving keynote address that wrenched my gut.

Live your life wisely; use your education and experience to fight for a cause bigger than yourself.”

So-o-o, Yin, what are you doing to bring about social change? 

What will you do to make a bigger impact on the lives of others, more than what you are doing now professionally and individually?

The Four Ls [of Paul Quinn College]

Leave places better than you found them. Lead from wherever you are. Live a life that matters. Love something greater than yourself.

Over and over again, those nagging words reverberated in my head.

Use your voice. Make it count.

Being part of a minority group, people expect us to not speak up about things. In the words of Sorrell, we are not expected to have a voice; our voice doesn’t matter. We get used to being oppressed and to not fighting back. If we do, we might even lose the little bit of crumbs we have been fed.

Stand up. Speak up.

Help end poverty.

When I’m sitting there in a classroom with my students, who I know, who I love, who I understand, who I expect the most out of, who I definitely strive to be better — when I’m in a room with them, and they can see their breath in the room, and some of them don’t have winter coats, so they’re shivering, their lips are chapped, they’re ashen, you know what I mean? . . . It’s infuriating. It makes you angry. It makes you sad. It makes you heartbroken. But more than anything, you want to do something.” – Aaron Maybin

 

Maryland is the richest state in the U.S. So why are kids in Baltimore going to school in freezing classrooms? pic.twitter.com/go96SXeriW

— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 10, 2018

In January, Oxfam reported that world inequality grows as the global economy created more billionaires last year.

How does that make you feel? 

We believe that higher ed institutions should turn themselves outward and address the needs of the communities and students they serve.” – Sorrell

That doesn’t make you popular but it is necessary. 

Sorrell’s college addressed food insecurity and environmental injustice issues in his community, and tackled the issue of the high cost of higher education. Knowing that the current higher education model doesn’t work for the majority of students who are working more than 20 hours a week, Paul Quinn College (PQC) turned itself into an urban work college. Students work up to 20 hours in PQC and graduate with less than $10,000 debt. PQC students are taught to solve the problems that are important to them. The college uses a project-based learning model that infuses lessons with entrepreneurial thought and action.

What if your classroom becomes your life? What if you had group projects that helped you to solve the problems of your life?

I would love to create more assessments and projects in courses that are reality based. But as an instructional designer, my influence is limited. I can only encourage and not implement; it’s not my course.

You need to teach your own course.  Yes, I want to.

From college to movement.

Fail first. Movements don’t start because you are happy. Only in higher ed do we expect revolutions to start from above. We think schools that have everything should teach schools that have nothing. What are you going to teach us?

Failure, the inability to access the things you need, for the purposes that you want, is motivational.

Righteous rage or love. You either got to be really angry or you got to love someone a whole lot, because it causes you to tap into places you are willing to devote your life to.

Have a vision. You can’t just be mad; you need to have an idea where you are taking people to.

Have a plan. You need to have a plan for how you are going to succeed.” – Sorrell

Keep going. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

You create movements by remembering who you are, whose you are and that you stand on the shoulders of giants, which means you don’t get the choice to be small. We must all stand up. We must rise up. We must understand, that this is our time. If we allow another day to go by, and function without a sense of urgency to change the educational experiences of our students, but not just the educational experiences, their life experiences, if we think that it’s okay to give an A education and an F life, we have failed them. We have been small when they needed us to be tall.” – Michael Sorell, March 6, 2018.

Thank you, Dr. Sorrell. The time is up. I need to get off my behind as you so aptly said.

[Enjoy Dr. Sorrell’s outstanding keynote address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3196&v=snE6nBlwSxY ]