Coming to Terms with the ‘D’ Word
A bit of clarity comes with the one-year anniversary of Diverse.
Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. That’s one way of describing what I was feeling.
Here’s another: closing my eyes and holding my nose. To say I was reluctant last summer as I prepared for the sea change that was to transform Black Issues In Higher Education to Diverse is probably an understatement. I had a list of excuses on standby to explain why I wasn’t ready for the change. We needed more time to plan and more correspondents, just to name two.
And then there’s that d-word: Diversity. Personally, I’m just not a terribly big fan. It seems overrated as a social virtue to me, particularly when compared to, say, justice.
But, like a good soldier, I saluted and followed the marching orders that came down from our publisher and CEO, longtime partners Frank Matthews and Bill Cox. I wrote the “End of an Era” piece for the final edition of Black Issues and I kept cranking out assignments. I also hunkered down next to my mailbox, like all the rest of our subscribers, to wait.
And the perspective of a year gives me the opportunity to say for the record — I was wrong.
