I have just returned from the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) annual convention. This year's event was held in Atlanta. Nearly 4000 individuals who work in a variety of areas of Student Affairs attended this years conference.
One of the highlights was the opening keynote address by poet, Nikki Giovanni. Ms. Giovanni talked about her life and her work and her friendships with Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. And she shared some of her poetry.
One of the most memorable stories was of her interaction with the wife of the bus driver who drove the bus the day that Rosa Parks took her seat in the front of the bus. Soon after the the bus drivers death, Ms. Giovanni spoke with his wife. The drivers wife said that you just didn't understand. That her husband was only a man of his time.
Ms. Giovanni's comment to us was that being "of our time" is not good enough. If we are "of our time" we only stay where we are. Change only happens when we our "men of the future" and that "being of our time" is not an excuse for injustice in any form.
I challenge each of you to be a man or woman of the future. Take this as the call to do something more. A call not to accept the status quo.
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