We Believe

In My Family We Believe 

My life is a life of firsts. 

I am the first to tell this story – my story.  I grew up in a small town in the south, in DeRidder, Louisiana to be exact, population – 10,639.  One of those “one stop light” towns you read about in old novels. I am the third of eight children (four boys and four girls) born into a single parent home. My mother was a strong black woman, and as the Apostle Paul might say, this is a true saying - my mother loved each and every one of us. However, on most days, I don’t think my mother liked us very much.  I believe she spent far too many days feeling sad and angry, because she saw us as her burdens to bear.  Yes, she had created each of us; but the weight of caring for us alone took its toll on her daily.  My mother worked whenever she could, but truth be told, she raised eight children by the grace of God and with some much needed assistance from the church/community.  And lest I paint an unfair picture of my mother, I must also share that my Mother did three things very well, and I will always love her for it – she made sure that we had food, clothing, and shelter; she made sure that we graduated from High School; and she made sure that we attended church every time the church doors were open (I can thank God and my mother for my strong Christian foundation).

For the greater part of my childhood, I don’t remember having a father; however, I know that God has watched over me and taken care of me better than any earthly father could that’s why Psalm 23 is so special to me.  It reminds me that God is not only looking out for me…it reminds me that He loves me and that He is protecting me (this gives me peace in difficult times).

Many years ago this story (at least these very personal aspects of my story) would have brought me to tears, and I must admit that throughout my childhood, it often caused me pain.  But today, I’m not sharing my story of very humble beginnings with you to gain your sympathy. I have chosen to share my story, because it’s extremely important for you to see where I came from in order to even begin to appreciate where I am today.  In my family, we believe in the following:

1)     We believe in family - It takes a village to raise a child – relatives (near and far), community, church, school (teachers); I think that’s why I believe that collaboration helps you achieve goals…

2)     In my family, we believe that - you should Respect your Elders – in the south and in particular in the church, children were taught to respect everyone in authority.

3)     In my family, we believe that - Education is important (my mother only had a high school diploma but she made sure all eight of her children graduated from high school, and she encouraged us to go to College as well).

4)     In my family, we believe that - Faith in God is paramount.  It is your rock, sword, and shield.  We believe Jesus is the Son of God.  We believe in the Holy Trinity.  We believe in the character of God (who God is) as well as the power of God (what God does).

5)     In my family, we believe – that you can do anything you want to do if you work hard, treat people right, believe in yourself, and trust in God…AND SO CAN OTHERS.  In other words, we were taught to encourage others to do their very best (while growing up, this applied mostly to my siblings, but today, particularly as a leader, I take this teaching to heart as I strive to help my staff, co-workers and colleagues achieve their goals).

6)     In my family, we believe – in telling it like it is.  My Mother used to tell me that I was the child that really didn’t like “stupid” stuff; she said things needed to make sense to me…I think that still applies to me in my work…I tend to be more practical, pragmatic, logical, tactical…so sometimes that means that I am less creative than I would like to be; so, when I hire people I look for people who are creative, who think outside the box…who complement my strengths.

My life is a life of firsts. 

My mother, when she was alive (she died in December 2008), loved to tell the story about how I was the first “little black girl” to truly integrate what was then known as the “white” pool.  If this incident is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, then this was certainly a preview of what was to come (particularly my focus on diversity, equity).   In 1987, I became the first of my mother’s eight children to graduate from college.  In 1988, I became the first of my mother’s girls to enter and serve in the military (all of her sons did). I served in the US Air Force during Desert Storm.

My professional life followed a similar path.  In 1991, I became the first Director of the Business Education Science Team (BEST) program started at California State University, Sacramento. I was also the first Director of the Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) Program at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA.   In 1998, I became the first Associate Director of the Statewide MESA Program housed at the University of California, Berkeley; and in 2001, I became the first Director of Education, Training, and Outreach for the National GEM Consortium then housed at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN.  From there, in 2005, I became the first Director of Diversity Programs in Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.  This position opened the door for me to serve in my current role as the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education and Director of the Office of Minority Education here at MIT. I joined the MIT staff in August 2009.

So how did I do it?  How did a little black girl from a small town in Louisiana make it from there to here?  Well, my path was not some mystical yellow brick road. It was a path of prayer and faith in God.  My mother was a praying woman.  She prayed for us, and she read her Bible every night. She may not have regularly attended church herself, but as I stated earlier; she made sure that her children did.  My faith in God and my love for Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of my life, and as Maya Angelou once said, “I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now”.   In my family, we believe that it is okay to want more…that where you start doesn’t necessarily determine where you will finish.  We believe, much like Dr. King and Dr. Angelou that “A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.”  This is the ilk that I am made of – a fabric woven with cords of faith, hope, strength, perseverance, power, and determination - and it is this foundation that prepared me for the “first” that would change my life forever…

On Sunday, April 25, 2004 (the day after my 39^th birthday), I preached my first sermon and became the first woman preacher in the history of the Pilgrim Baptist Church in South Bend, In. This is my calling.  This is my charge.  I carry it out in all areas of my life, even here at MIT if I am led or called upon by students, staff, or faculty to do so.  Like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”   Thank you and God bless you.

 DiOnetta Jones
 Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education and Director of the Office of Minority Education

In My Family

The events of the past week have jarred us all.   Now, I am wondering what a lot of people are wondering.   How is it that a 19-year-old who is remembered from high school years as a “sociable, compassionate, friendly, wonderful kid” is drawn, seemingly out of the blue, into committing the horrible acts we have just witnessed?  This, of course, is an extreme case, but raises the broader question of how to help young people enter adulthood with a strong moral compass.   It’s not enough that they don’t blow things up; we need to raise a generation of people who will build a civilization based on values of justice, compassion, and universal recognition that the human race is a family.

This brings us back to our theme: our families of origin.   For those who are fortunate, this is one’s very first experience of what a community should be like and how it should function.   And I count myself among the fortunate ones in this respect.    I grew up as the fourth of five children in a middle class suburban Catholic family.   My father was a mechanical engineer who attended college during the Great Depression, paying expenses by waiting tables.   My mother grew up on a farm.   On paper, my background sounds pretty ordinary.

Now I’m being asked to reflect on what it was about this family that taught me about how to engage the world.   Where do I begin?   As always, my parents’ actions were far more important than their words.    First, there was an atmosphere of unconditional love.   As children, my siblings and I were always made to feel that we were intrinsically good people.   And by this I don’t mean a false preoccupation with making us feel good all the time or being afraid that criticism might hurt our self-esteem.   Indeed, when I made mistakes or did less-than-good things, I had to own up to it; but it was always clear that it was my action that had fallen short, not that I was inherently bad.  Second, my parents cultivated a strong sense of teamwork and responsibility to the family.   I never saw them quarrel; they would always discuss things in an attitude of mutual respect.    On Saturday mornings the household chores would be divvied up among us all.   Third, they used situations that came up in our lives as opportunities to convey their values.   I remember that for a time I was kept from watching The Man From Uncle, a popular prime time spy show.  My parents were disturbed by the cavalier attitude toward deadly violence on the show and expressed this to me; I’ve never forgotten this.   A lot of what made my family what it was are intangible things.  During a visit to my parents when I was in grad school, a friend of mine entered the living room and saw each of us doing our separate things:  I was reading a book, my mother working a crossword puzzle, and so on.   This friend later said to me that even though we were not doing something together, it still felt like we were together.

And now I realize that the characteristics I hope to promote in the functioning of society at large, justice, compassion, solidarity, are modeled and taught in the context of the nuclear family.    This is what equips children to grow into adults who can see that a new kind of civilization is possible and who have the capacity to build it.

Brian Aull

Bahai Chaplain

Making Sense of Nonsense

Making Sense of Nonsense

How to be pertinent? We here at MIT have been locked down since late last evening. The sound of sirens has seldom not been heard. Students gather around their laptops listening to police scanners. We know what is going on.

One of our police officers was killed two blocks from here responding to a disturbance call. He was doing his job. He was 26 and grew up a few miles away. He knew lots of students, went camping with those in the Outing Club. Being a public safety officer was his calling.

For our students this is their 9/11. They were between seven and eleven when the Towers crumbled. Now here it happens again. Not as dramatic, but in some ways more realistic. It did not just happen and then we responded. It seems this is playing out over a longer period and the villains are just like our students. They are our neighbors, they are our peers.

The site of the officer’s death is just down the Infinite Corridor, through the Stata Building. We all go there every day or two. A mother called last night wanting to hear from her son: “He studies in the Stata Building.” And he did, and he called her.

Across the river a mile away, there was another bomb found. Down Massachusetts Avenue the sidewalk on Boylston Street is still stained with the blood of those who died and those who were injured as they waited for family and friends to finish a race.  Can we ever be safe again?

After Monday it was easier to respond. Impersonal horror can be thought about, compartmentalized.  But then on Tuesday it got personal. One of our students knew the family of the youngest victim. He was his babysitter. Tears came easily –for all of us.

Then we learned that the young woman from China was known by our students. She had gone on retreat with them. So we gathered on Wednesday and challenged one another to do what we do best: solve problems. That is the MIT way. We would design bionic limbs for children to grow with.  We could make a better world for eight year old boys and girls from China where they can live full lives, where hatred is not an option. We can do that. Or so we think.

And then last night happened.  It is not so easy to simply reflect when it is so close to home. It is not so easy to turn the issue into a design problem when you think of a young man called to be a public servant killed before he could get out of his car.

Christianity came into being on the occasion of great pain and suffering. A family lost an eldest son. A mother watched and wept. That is where we are now. Watching, waiting and weeping. I hear the sirens again. We are still locked down and it shows no sign of abating.

Steven Colbert helped us through the early days of the week, but now the anger comes unbidden. I got a call from the leader of the Muslim community worried about the hatred he feared might surface.  It has not yet but it may. If it does then we are no better than those who have harmed us.

Today we know the fear Israeli students on their way to school know; what parents in Iraq know when they send their children out for groceries; the fear men in Afghanistan know when they leave home to get petrol. Around the world there are families who never know the kind of peace we take for granted. Now we have learned another name for fear, Chechnya. We see the world through new eyes.

At 4 PM I have a wedding rehearsal. Maybe that is the way to derive meaning from days like today. Look evil in the eye, affirm your love for one another and step forward. That takes a courage that can banish fear.

Robert M. Randolph

Chaplain to the Institute

MIT

Cambridge, MA

02139

Words Matter

Words Matter

I wrote earlier about the challenges of interfaith dialogue and how difficult it is when you do not allow differences to emerge because you want to avoid conflict and the clash of ideas. In the modern university there is another area of tension where ideas do not necessarily clash but where words do.  Here the degradation of what I call polite conversation poses enormous difficulties.

An acquaintance remarked about the state of  conversation by mentioning that he remembered when Rhett Butler saying “Damn” raised all sorts of reaction when “Gone With the Wind“ was first released. I didn’t tell him how devastated I was when Tarzan of the Apes first uttered “Damn” in one of the early Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan books. The book had been written in the early 20^th century, but I read it more than a  decade after Gone with the Wind. How one reacts to the most modest of swear words tells volumes about your educational context. It also explains how hard it is to raise the issue of inappropriate language. For some,  words are what comes out of the mouth; for others, and I count myself in this group, words are almost sacred. They matter and how they are used is important.

By the time I was ten I could swear better in Spanish than I could in English and that was to my advantage since my family did not understand what I was really saying. Or maybe they did, as I was soon moved from a predominantly Hispanic grade school to one where acting out was measured by whether or not you spat on the asphalt playground.

Even as the homogeneity of spoken language has made our public voices sound alike, the influence of urban America and our military adventures have introduced to public discourse language that Tarzan would never use in the presence of self-respecting apes. The crude stream of rap passing as music makes it appear that there are no limits to what may be said and few seem willing to speak out and say that there are limits to what ought to pass as appropriate conversation.

The proof may be easily seen on un-moderated e-mail lists in the university where invective and vulgarity rule. The other day a young woman told me that some friends had referred to her as a whore in conversation on line not because she was known to sleep around, but simply because they thought it funny to use the word to refer to women. She thought it odd that I challenged the word as inappropriate. In her world she felt she could give as good as she got, but the suggestion that no one needed to talk that way gave her pause. Why hadn’t anyone told her she could take offense?

On another list a young man found new and creative ways to use the F-word and when I suggested that choice of words and repetition make his litany less effective than it might have been, his only reply was that speech ought to be free. What would happen, I asked, if a prospective employer found his public rant? Was he trying make a point or simply engaging in performance vulgarity? There are lots of things you can say that you do not need to say, I suggested.  He understood, but thought his freedom of speech was being compromised. Again, I asked, was he talking to be heard or to offend?  Maybe we all need to think about how we might introduce moderation in language into the world around each of us.

Speaking up to call out those who think every verb begins with F is not as easy as it might seem and that is in part because a lot of younger folk have come to believe that because they know a word they can use it. Do not go to the movies with them as they can yell fire pretty loudly.  Free speech seems to mean that I can say what I will about anyone no matter how ugly the words. If no one says that being foul mouthed is not cool, the words simply keep falling out.

Once I recovered from Tarzan’s heresy, I found occasions where strong words made points that could be made in no other way. But I often kept quiet when others spoke as if they were imitating a verbal sewer. My point when I did reply was often simply that four letter words have only limited impact in  contemporary discourse. I remind students that we use words to communicate ideas and strong words can get attention and may help make a point. When all words are equally strong the effect is cancelled. Too many swear words strung together have no impact except to remind the hearer what happens when the tongue gets lazy and the brain shuts down.

All of this is matters little if  we all look down and ignore hurtful language that is both foul and foolish. I have found that asking if someone really means what they are saying can cause enough reaction to foster real dialogue. But it takes a village to start the conversation. Here in the university we have the opportunity to change what is acceptable, but it is not clear that we have the courage to speak up lest we be thought prudish. It is assumed that chaplains are prudish so I have little to lose, but what about the rest of you?

Robert M Randolph

Chaplain to the Institute

MIT

Cambridge, MA 02139