Dive Brief:

• Southern Connecticut State University President Joe Bertolino recently wrote in an op-ed for the New Haven Register that the university cannot meet student needs or help them achieve their goals without an institutional commitment to social justice. "In my view," he wrote, "social justice is not a political platform but rather the full realization of the values on which our nation was founded: the right to be who you are and to espouse and express what you believe in."
• Emphasizing the Jesuit ideal under which he was raised to care for the entire person, Bertolino said it is this same principle that undermines social justice, and said, "It is only by taking on the mantle of social justice that we will ensure that our campus environment is safe, nurturing and welcoming for all."
• As the leader of a public institution, he emphasized the importance of free speech and guaranteeing the right of everyone to be heard, but also said conversations must be had with dignity, respect, kindness, compassion and civility, and in a way that reinforces the idea that all voices matter equally. 

Dive Insight:

In a recent telephone conversation, Baltimore City Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Sonja Brookins Santelises said she is focusing efforts to revitalize education in the city around the idea that increased education, specifically literacy, is the path to liberation for a population that has felt oppressed by all types of institutions — from police to schools and everything in between — for generations. "Schools really belong to communities," she said. "We have for a variety of reasons, we have unfortunately made schools institutions in the middle of the communities, when they really are extensions of the community."

Through a push for "literacy as liberation, literacy as citizenship, literacy as agency and literacy to be able to bring your collective gifts and talents to the table for the collective good," Santelises said the BCPS staff hopes to tackle issues that educators at all levels, across the spectrum, are trying to grapple with. 

"How are we aligning our efforts to have schools that are healthy places socially, emotionally, that are enriched academics … that expose young people to the world beyond what they see while at the same time validating the strengths of their own identity."

Many in higher education see this as the very work they are tasked with, as well. Before higher education was discussed primarily as a vehicle to credential students to enter the workplace, it was seen as a place to help students find their identities and help them transition from adolescence to adulthood. And as study after study continues to point out that graduating students are ill-prepared for life after college, it would seem higher education as a credential mill is not meeting the needs of the workforce or society.