On a cool October Friday in Lansing, Michigan, we gathered at the Lansing Center for our weekly Rotary meeting. President Sue Hansen rang the bell as we all rose in unison. Ken Beachler gave our invocation recalling the invocation from our Rotary past and John Dale Smith led us in God Bless America on the keyboards as he has done so many times in our weekly get togethers.
Kim Garland handled the microphone roaming duties to introduce our guests and visiting Rotarians. We had many guests, most with ties to Lansing Community College in anticipation of our speaker for today’s meeting.
Diane Sanborn shared some sad news with our club, Dr. Paul Linnell passed away at the age of 91 and was a member of our club since 1973. No other member health news was shared.
In honoring Rotarians doing great things, President Sue announced that Pat Munshaw a nurse coming out of retirement to assist with COVID vaccinations. Her story was featured Friday night on Bob Hoffman’s show “Good Neighbors” at 7 pm Fox 47 and I suspect it can be viewed anytime on the station’s website or social media accounts.
Next up was our world-famous special music featuring saxophonist Owen Robinson a Sophomore in the Michigan State University School of Music accompanied by John Dale Smith. Owen was introduced by his father and fellow Rotarian, Steve Robinson. Owen and John Dale performed a piece by Tommy Dorsey. They were thanked by the club with a rousing applause.
Chair of the month Cathy Zell handed off the chair duties to Steve Robinson as Chair of the day to introduce our speaker Angela Mathews, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees at Lansing Community College. Ms. Mathews topic was “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Let’s get to work”. Steve Robinson announced that at a recent community college trustees conference Ms. Mathews was named the Chairperson of the African American Trustees Caucus for the American Community College Trustees Association.
Ms. Mathews is a passionate proponent of efforts in bringing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in our higher education systems and ultimately our society as a whole. Ms. Mathews began by reminding us of the traumatic events of 2020 not only with the pandemic, but the horrible acts of violence and racism we experienced in our nation. Ms. Mathews emphasized that everything must change in our approach how educational institutions such as Lansing Community College must address a DEI action plan on a collegewide basis from the administration, to on campus public safety, faculty and as well as our academic classrooms and learning environments.
Lansing Community College is embracing this complete institutional diversity, equity and inclusion solution to address not only overt forms of exclusionary practices for all, but also the unconscious biases that are inherent in many of our current educational operations and practices. By imbedding the concepts DEI in our current educational practices, with the goal to open up new opportunities for all students and members of our educational institutions. Ultimately this approach can lead to our students being exposed to this action plan enabling them to take advantage of broken down barriers that have been created over time to create limitless opportunities for their success in their lives and for our nation as a whole.
Ms. Mathews closed with the challenge that all of us as community leaders and thought leaders get to work in making this vision come to fruition.
After many great questions from our club members, many of whom were genuinely interested in furthering this discussion, President Sue closed our meeting with a gentle rap on the bell reminding us that we meet again next week at the Lansing Center.
Tim Adam's email is: TAdams@manercpa.com