The Labor Day Holiday brings the start of a new academic year at colleges and universities around the nation. This is a time for academics to begin a term with fresh possibilities in our work as teachers, researchers, and citizens. I experienced the breadth and depth of new beginnings at my school’s faculty retreat as I transitioned from one university to another.
Looking across the physically distanced auditorium, I was no longer the only or one of the only Black professors at the fall academic year faculty retreat. Most of the faculty were Black identified. This is an important fact because the latest data from the U.S Department of Education say that 5% of Black faculty are tenure-track or tenured in colleges and universities across the nation. However, 57% of faculty at HBCUs identify as Black. Put another way, there is a 1 in 2 chance that students at Black colleges will be taught, mentored, and/or advised by a Black faculty member. 
Dr. Tryan L. McMickens
I have been fortunate to participate in many faculty retreats over the past decade as a mid-career professor and administrator in higher education. None have felt as affirming, loving, encouraging, and supportive as the one I participated in at my new intellectual home - North Carolina Central University's School of Education. None have captured the nuance of these times; the theme "Perplexing Times in Education" centered the realities that Black and other minoritized communities are facing due to COVID-19, ongoing anti-Black racism, and the effects of the January 6th insurrection. None have included a multi-generational, solutions-oriented approach to long standing issues that Black children have faced in schools.
I had a strong sense of belonging at the half-day retreat and the other occasions that I've interacted with students, faculty, and staff. Knowing that this intellectual community was built just for me to thrive, to be challenged, to be supported, and to help educate a new generation of higher education leaders was evident throughout the faculty retreat. An ethic of care was thematic across the speakers, the gestures, and the ways the event was designed.
Gestures involved retrieving name tags, which had faculty member's honorifics displayed (i.e., Dr. Alice Bob; faculty rank; retreat theme); listening to greetings from administrators who centered the active institutional mission of “truth and service;” recognizing the accomplishments of students and faculty; welcoming new faculty; and honoring emeritus faculty for their storied careers. An affirming experience occurred when two musical selections were led by a soloist who brought nearly all participants to their feet after singing Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’s “Wake up Everybody” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” A lunch with a dessert nourished the soul as the final gesture to end the retreat. These symbolisms and gestures were followed by content that focused on the issues that we as educators face today.
