The following remarks were offered by LFA Vice President Natalie Hopper at the April 6, 2023 meeting of the Lakeland Community College Board of Trustees.
Hello, I’m Natalie Hopper. I am Coordinator for the Assessment of Student Learning at Lakeland, Professor of Composition and Literature, Vice President of the Lakeland Faculty Association, faculty advisor for the Theater Club, and faculty co-advisor for the English Honor Society.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
Diversity of thought and experience are at the center of all that we do and have been long before the current political winds brought serious misconceptions about and misrepresentations of higher education and its faculty.
We advocate for inclusion, diversity, and equity because we advocate for all students. Faculty members are not trying to indoctrinate students. We are not trying to turn them into liberals or conservatives, or any other kind of ideologue.
We work to help students become informed citizens who can make their own decisions about the world, and we do this by exposing them to a variety of viewpoints and teaching them how to evaluate those viewpoints.
I ask you again to visit our classrooms. You will get to know Lakeland’s students, and you will see the attempts to paint faculty as political operatives for the falsehoods they are. We do not teach students what to think. We teach them how to think. This is and has always been the case.
If there is a danger of inserting politics into Lakeland’s mission and values, it does not stem from the faculty or our commitment to long-standing values.
It has come to my attention that a Lakeland trustee is scheduled to speak at a political activist event where he will be discussing Lakeland’s mission and values and, more specifically, questioning whether they align with the values of Lake County residents.
As you are all aware, Lakeland’s mission includes a commitment to meeting the diverse needs of the community. This commitment is a critical component of Lakeland’s identity and its ability to serve its students and community effectively. This trustee’s past criticism of one or more Lakeland core values as they appeared in the Strategic Plan raises concerns about his ability to responsibly and accurately represent the college at such an event.
In the political event announcement, the speaker is identified as a Lakeland trustee, giving the impression that he represents the College and/or Board on a matter that the Board agreed to set aside in the DEI committee meeting last month.
I want to reiterate that the core values of Lakeland Community College are not political, but rather essential to providing a quality education to all of our students. We have a responsibility to uphold these values and ensure that they are not compromised for personal or political gain.
I urge all of you to consider the potential implications of a trustee’s participation in this event and to take appropriate action to protect Lakeland’s integrity and reputation.
Thank you for your attention to this matter and for upholding the mission and values of Lakeland Community College.