News Summary

SPRINGFIELD — A panel of educators tackled a number of issues in a forum at Wittenberg University on Wednesday, including a student's and college's role in creating social change.

The panel discussion was part of the university's celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

While panel members discussed everything from the social climate that led to the civil rights movement in the 1960s to the role students played in the process, education was a constant theme throughout.

In the 1960s, students tried to provide room for ideas that would challenge racial segregation, said John Young, assistant dean for judicial affairs at Wittenberg. Those ideals are still important today to improve economic disparities and access to education, he said.

"Many of the actors (in the civil rights movement) came out of college campuses, but also took what they learned and brought them back to those campuses," he said.

Forest Wortham, director of multicultural student programs at Wittenberg, noted access to higher education played a large role in the civil rights movement. Higher education for most people was not attainable until the G.I. Bill was introduced in World War II, allowing millions of soldiers to attend college for the first time, he said.

Panel members said it is important for students to leave college with a sense of justice, as well as a better understanding of various histories and cultures around them, and for the institutions to try to impart some of those values to their students.

Those who do not take those lessons to heart have learned little, even if they earned a degree, argued Philana Crite, a student support services counselor at Clark State Community College.

"If you still have that (prejudice) then you have not been educated," she said.