As a professor in the field of higher education and a student affairs administration, understanding how college students learn, grow and develop is foundational to my scholarly and professional agenda. While a focus on the development of all college student populations has been central to my formal training, development of diverse student populations has been the primary driver of my research engagements.
Thus, whenever an opportunity avails itself to speak to moving the needle in the positive direction of diverse student engagement, I find it critical to engage in dialogue with colleagues, family, friends, and students to problematize and deconstruct the true lesson behind whatever developmental critical issue is being presented.
Perhaps one of the most salient topics that serve as grist for the college student development mill is the current situation with the Talladega College band — whether this group of students should participate in the inauguration ceremony for President-elect Donald Trump.
According to the Talladega College website, the institution is a private, four-year, coeducational, liberal arts institution located in an historic district of the city of Talladega, Alabama. The history of Talladega College began on November 20, 1865, when two former slaves, William Savery and Thomas Tarrant, met with a group of new freedmen in Mobile, Alabama. The mission of the college is to equip its graduates for the global community through academic excellence, moral values, community service, and professional development.”
With the recent announcement by Talladega College President Billy C. Hawkins that his institution’s band would participate in the inauguration ceremony for President-Elect Donald J. Trump, Hawkins was thrusted into a reality that presented both criticism and praise from alumni, board members, and various other external and internal agents.
Whether we feel that the Talladega College band should or should not participate in the inauguration ceremony is an argument that is intimately bound by individual beliefs, experiences, perceptions, and motivations — one that I will not attempt to disabuse or support. What is critical now is to use this situation as a teachable moment along their developmental trajectories.
So, instead of focusing on President Hawkins and the band members’ decision to participate in the inauguration ceremony, we need to seize this opportunity and make it a teachable moment — not only for these college students, but also for those of us who have lived beyond our undergraduate years. What is critical for all parties to consider is how we can use this experience as foundational to our own growth and development along a cognitive, social, and psychosocial continuum.
