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Lakeland Faculty Choose Students over Politics
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.
Lakeland Faculty Love What We Do, and We’re Damn Good at It
LFA President Tobin F. Terry’s remarks at the November 3, 2022 Lakeland Board of Trustees Meeting, delivered with the hope of helping the trustees understand what it means to be an educator at Lakeland.
Dr. Beverage, Chairperson Vitaz, and Board of Trustees,
I’m Tobin Terry, President of the LFA.
We have 124 full-time faculty who come from some of the top programs in the country and/or have invaluable real-world experience in applied fields.
These faculty specialize in their academic areas, but are also expert teachers. They understand our students and strive to inspire them to realize their full potential.
Our faculty know that teaching is more than disseminating information to a group of students.
Teaching is holding office hours to meet one-on-one with students who need additional help, who want to get caught up after an absence, or who crave additional knowledge beyond the course content.
Teaching is creating a classroom environment where students feel seen, valued, and safe–an environment where they can ask questions without fear of judgment and build connections with fellow students that will benefit them beyond the classroom.
Teaching is providing meaningful feedback to students, communicating in written and oral form what the students’ strengths are and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Teaching is creating meaningful lesson plans and assignments in response to the specific needs of the students in the room, needs that can only be determined if the instructor has the opportunity and the drive to get to know their students as humans instead of rows in a gradebook.
Lakeland’s faculty members have this opportunity and this drive to educate the whole student, identifying individual needs and working to meet them in the classroom, during office hours, or through referrals to campus resources.
Our combination of education, experience, and dedication, in collaboration with dedicated staff and college leadership, are why Lakeland has such a positive reputation not just in our own community but nationwide.
In the interest of demonstrating our value as potential participants in your discussion of equity, inclusion, and diversity, and other consequential decisions, and with the goal of helping you understand the tremendous work being done in Lakeland classrooms, including why small class sizes and personal connections are vital to student success, members of the Lakeland faculty are inviting you to join us in our classrooms. I will be in touch soon with names, dates, and times of classes that faculty are personally inviting you to attend. I urge you to accept.
We love what we do, and we’re damn good at it. We look forward to sharing that with you.
Let Us Show You What Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Mean at Lakeland
LFA President Tobin F. Terry’s remarks at October 3, 2022 Lakeland Board of Trustees Meeting regarding recent board conversations and votes relating to the terms “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion.”
Chairperson Vitaz, Board of Trustees, and President Beverage,
I’m Tobin Terry, President of the Lakeland Faculty Association.
I thank trustee Kessler for her comments at the end of last week’s meeting clarifying her position regarding the special committee to review equity, inclusion, and diversity language. I think many members of the campus and larger community were encouraged by her reassurance that she did not see the special committee’s charge “to review” the language as something that would result in removing, replacing, or diminishing the terms.
I also thank Chairperson Vitaz for her comments in a recent article published by InsideHigherEd.com. Chairperson Vitaz said that the committee was formed because quote “the board would like to better understand what diversity, equity and inclusion means at the college.”
I truly believe, as I said in my comments at the last meeting, that in your hearts, you support the values that these words represent. I also believe that you now understand the practical importance of these words.
Reflecting on Mrs. Kessler and Chairperson Vitaz’s statements, I believe that the board is interested in better understanding how Lakeland employees implement these values and how Lakeland students benefit from them.
Let us show you.
I hope that the board will consider including the voices of other stakeholders–including students, staff, and faculty–to the committee, as was suggested by Mr. Frager at the last meeting.
I also urge the board to formally state that the charge of the committee is not to remove the terms altogether. This specification is important because of the origins of the committee, which grew out of an initial motion to remove “equity” and “inclusion” from the strategic plan. Please make official Chairperson Vitaz’s statement that the goal of the committee is to better understand what the words mean for Lakeland and our students.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to the opportunity to work alongside you impacting lives through learning.
Keep Political Games out of Lakeland
LFA President Tobin F. Terry’s remarks delivered at the September 29, 2022 Lakeland Board of Trustees meeting regarding the approved motion from the September 1, 2022 meeting to form a trustee-only committee to review the words “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” as they appear in Lakeland policies and documents.
Dr. Beverage, Chairperson Vitaz, and Board of Trustees:
Hello, again. My name is Tobin Terry, President of the Lakeland Faculty Association, Professor of English, Lake County father of three.
When I addressed you during the September 1 Board meeting, I urged you to reject a motion to omit the words equity, inclusion, and inclusivity from the College’s Strategic Plan.
In that meeting, I heard that many of you support the principles of equity, inclusion, and diversity but that you have reservations about the words themselves because of their status as political lightning rods.
Let us remember, as Trustee Frager reminded us, that these words have actual, technical, dictionary definitions. They are not legalese whose meaning is open to interpretation.
I explained in my previous remarks that Lakeland’s institutional accreditor, The Higher Learning Commission, mandates a commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity, as do accreditors for our individual academic programs of study.
These are the industry-standard terms for an educational institution’s commitment to meeting the needs of all students, and there are no synonyms.
Efforts to distance Lakeland from these terms jeopardize our accreditation. Without accreditation, a Lakeland degree has no value—our graduates won’t get jobs; our enrollments will evaporate.
There are those who seek to vilify words and values that have long been a part of Lakeland’s legacy and that embody the best of who we are and what we have to offer. These people wish to use the College and our most vulnerable students to start a culture war, but Lakeland and our students are not pawns to be sacrificed in someone else’s game of political chess.
We are here to show our support of continued commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity, not to promote partisan politics. You know who we are. You’ve visited our classrooms and offices; you’ve commended our dedication to student success. Our only agenda is ensuring the success and well-being of our students and protecting Lakeland’s ability to continue serving the community.
In the last meeting, this Board voted to form a committee to review these terms in Lakeland’s policies, but I urge you and everyone here to consider what work such a committee could possibly do. Our accreditors require us to use these exact words, and they already have definitions. There is nothing to discuss.
A thank you message for Lake County from LFA President Tobin F. Terry
Dear Lake County,
The Lakeland Faculty Association (LFA) offers its sincerest thanks to everyone who worked, donated, or voted on behalf of Issue 1.
Lakeland, quite literally, would not exist without Lake County voters, and it is immensely rewarding to know that the community supports the work that Lakeland employees do each and every day on behalf of students.
The individuals at Lakeland and within the larger community who were exceedingly dedicated to the levy campaign are too many to name here, but we would like to thank the Lakeland Board of Trustees, Lakeland Foundation, Citizens for Lakeland, various campaign committees, volunteer campaign leaders, and the many others who helped ensure that Lakeland’s service to the community remains at the high level that residents deserve and have come to expect.
As faculty, we recognize the faith that Lake County has placed in us and remain committed to our students and to Lakeland’s tradition of academic excellence. In fact, I’m delighted to announce that the LFA has reached endowment on a faculty-funded scholarship that will soon be awarded on a recurring basis through Lakeland’s financial aid application and selection system.
For all the former Lakeland students, family members of students, friends of Lakeland, and supporters of public education who braved the weather (or voted early) to endorse Issue 1, the LFA is truly grateful.
Sincerely,
Tobin F. Terry, President
Lakeland Faculty Association
Dear Lakeland Community,
When our college closed its physical doors in March, LFA and adjunct faculty did not shrink from the challenges of our new reality. Instead, we rallied along with staff to remotely deliver the high-quality education that our community has come to expect.
For LFA faculty, this academic year will mark nearly 2,000 collective years of service to Lakeland alone. Our faculty include professors who studied in top programs in their fields, scholars actively pursuing their specialties, and professionals from the private sector who bring years of valuable expertise to the classroom. When skilled faculty find their way to our college, get to know the wonders of Lake County, and meet the intelligent and promising students we teach, they stay.
This is the strength of a college and community that attract and retain top talent. The college’s Chief Academic Officer has over two decades of service as faculty at Lakeland, and the president has returned and remained in his position as president to lead even now, eight years after his retirement.
Talent and our ability to keep it, are why our college ranks among the nation’s best, as reported by the News-Herald on May 6 of this year. The News-Herald reported on Jan. 15 of this year that Lakeland ranks number two “in the nation for students reaching educational goals.” These distinguished achievements are not possible without our LFA faculty members, our adjunct faculty, and Lakeland staff. They are especially not possible without the support of our community.
As an institution and as individuals, Lakeland is committed to students. We must ask ourselves, especially in this difficult time: how might we continue to demonstrate our commitment to serving the best interests of students?
I publicly thank LFA members for their unwavering dedication to our students, our college, and our community. We remain committed despite the fact that we are working under an expired contract, and we hold fast to that commitment while our Negotiations Team continues to work long hours toward a swift and fair resolution.
I also thank the Lakeland community for your support. We face these new challenges together, and together we will advance the LFA’s mission to serve our college with the devotion and high-quality education that our community deserves.
Thank you,
Lynne Gabriel, Ph.D.
LFA President