Selected
Article:
Three
key issues to shape the future
By Jon Levingston
I
am humbled to be asked to share some thoughts regarding
Clarksdale’s future since of the DBJ contains a spotlight
on my town Clarksdale has a future; the question is: What
kind of future will its residents choose? I offer respectfully
some suggestions about three areas which will have considerable
consequence for this community in the next few decades:
education, economic development and race relations. All
three topics will have an impact on our future, and our
choices regarding them will determine in large part the
direction we establish, for good or bad, for our town.
Education
There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that goes like this:
When trying to locate a community for what would become
the Delta Teachers College, the Mississippi Legislature
considered Clarksdale. For whatever reasons, community leaders
of that day so protested the location of the college in
their community that the Legislature instead chose Cleveland
as the home of the new institution. If the story is true,
one has only to see the salutary benefits Cleveland has
derived from the presence of Delta State University to realize
the folly of those past protests.
Regardless of the veracity of that story, Clarksdale has
been presented today a similar opportunity with the location
of the Coahoma County Higher Education Center on the historic
12-acre Cutrer property, most recently used as St. Elizabeth
Catholic School.
The Higher Education Center, a partnership effort between
Delta State University and Coahoma Community College, was
conceived as a satellite campus designed to meet specific
educational needs of the northwestern Delta region not currently
being addressed by either institution. The partnership’s
institutions did not impose curriculum on the Clarksdale
campus. Rather, Dr. Paul Starkey, Dean of Continuing Education
at Delta State University and Dr. Rosetta Howard of Coahoma
Community College and their staffs researched the needs
of the region to determine what courses might best serve
our people Consequently, Delta State and Coahoma Community
College responded with a four point program: 1. Teacher
Education; 2. Workforce Training; 3. Health-Care Training;
and 4.Cultural
Development.
As the curriculum evolves, this campus will help train people
for good jobs, retrain others for new jobs and provide continuing
education for more in ongoing jobs. Additionally, the accessibility
and flexibility designed into both campuses and the curriculum
provides for cultural enrichment courses and programs, as
well.
After four years of volunteer fundraising and curriculum
development, groundbreaking ceremonies were held this past
April 23, as the six million dollar renovation of the campus
and its three buildings began. But the groundbreaking does
not signal the end of the need for volunteer or community
support. On the contrary, the groundbreaking marks only
the end of the beginning. Just as Oxford supports the University
of Mississippi or Cleveland supports Delta State or Starkville
supports Mississippi State, as a community we must support
this partnership’s campus in every possible way, if
it is to derive every benefit such a campus may provide.
An opportunity has been presented to our area. Its value
to us will be determined by the creativity of the host institutions,
their responsiveness to our region’s needs and what
we, as a community, will be willing to contribute to this
campus.
And how can those of us not officially associated with Delta
State or Coahoma Community College continue to support this
project? Any educational institution requires continued
financial contributions from its supporters. Often, that
support comes in the form of the creation of scholarships,
naming opportunities, planned estate giving or outright
gifts. Additionally, as the campus becomes more operational,
volunteer efforts will be welcomed for assistance with special
campus events. Our ability to support this campus will be
limited only by the boundaries of our creative thinking.
Economic development
It has been said that nothing happens in a vacuum. That
saying is especially pertinent to the topic of economic
development. Often it takes an entire state to cultivate
and help relocate an industry to one of Mississippi’s
communities. There are many aspects to successfully locating
a new industry to our area. However, I wish to focus on
one issue vital to that endeavor that the successful completion
of which can be credited to no one person but rather reflects
the commitment of the community and the state: the combination
of education and workforce training to create an employable
workforce.
Excellent work in this area has been accomplished on the
state level by the State Workforce Council, led for many
years by Clarksdale native, George Walker. Locally, the
Workforce Training Center of Coahoma Community College is
one of our area’s most treasured resources. Lois McMurchy,
director of the center, and her team have an almost unlimited
capacity to aid in the relocation of new industry as well
as to provide extraordinary resources for existing businesses
in our area. These efforts, both statewide and locally,
focus on what is possible to do now. But what about tomorrow?
Will today’s youth be prepared to be trained to function
as a member of tomorrow’s workforce?
Research shows that a child’s most important period
of development is his first five years of life. Further
research indicates that a child is best able to learn good
communicative skills between the ages of three years and
eight years, roughly equivalent of 3K through third grade.
The children who are not provided the type of training available
to most middle-class families during this time in their
life often fall far behind their peers on standardized tests.
Consequently, they test at levels well below their current
grade in school. From this, we may infer that a cycle exists
that almost ensures either the failure of these children
later in life or their limited ability to communicate and
learn.
The estimated percent of the child population of Coahoma
County in poverty from ages 0 to 17 is 49.7 percent, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Income and Poverty
Estimates, 1995. The same source reveals that this figure
compares to 31 percent statewide and 20.6 percent nationwide.
If we are to look to today’s youth as tomorrow’s
workforce, and surely we have no other youth to whom to
turn, we must provide them with the very best start in life
possible. While we can’t enter people’s homes
and monitor parenting skills, we can, through federal, state
and local governments, use what resources are available
to us, wisely, to target those children most in need of
early-childhood training.
If we are ever to have hope of attracting new industry to
our area, as well as keeping that which we currently have,
we must produce a workforce able to meet industry’s
needs. Our choice in this area will have a profound impact
on our economic future. We either pay now for programs adequate
to train those children most at risk or we pay later in
greater welfare payments to the scores of unemployable.
In this way, careful planning of our area youths’
education becomes a critical link in the economic-development
success or failure of our community’s future.
Race
Finally, we arrive at the topic that has been among the
most divisive throughout the history of mankind. The behavior
of one race to another has at one time ripped apart the
fabric of this nation and, to this day, continues to be
of concern in almost every phase of life in our state and
country. We talk and argue about the state of race relations,
and, in many instances, we have made great progress. Yet,
we remain a people divided. Culture, familial, religious
and educational backgrounds often play a role in maintaining
this great divide. Ignorance, which breeds fear and consequently
violence, is owned by no one race. We all play a role in
either bridging the divide or maintaining the status quo.
In the Reform Jewish Prayerbook, Gates of Prayer, it is
written: “The intelligent heart does not deny reality.
We must not forget the grief of yesterday, nor ignore the
pain of today. But yesterday is past. It cannot tell us
what tomorrow will bring. If there is goodness at the heart
of life, then its power, like the power of evil, is real.
Which shall prevail? Moment by moment we choose between
them. If we choose rightly, and often enough, the broken
fragments of our world will be restored to wholeness.”
Again, the future of our community is faced with a choice:
How proactive will we choose to be in developing understanding,
compassion and respect among all peoples? It seems to me
that, if we have any hope of a prosperous, enlightened and
civilized community, our future rests clearly in the choices
we make in regard to our behavior toward our neighbors.
Whether we choose to give in to easy stereotyping and cynicism
or to dig in and do the hard work today that pays future
dividends will determine, in large part, the cultural, social
and economic quality of our community’s life in the
years to come.
Education, economic development and race relations are subjects
inextricably tied to the future of our community. The challenge
before us seems to be whether we wish to deal with these
difficult subjects in a realistic, humane and wise manner
or whether we wish to perpetuate, by sin of commission or
by sin of omission, the status quo of our past.
Surely great strides have been made by many fine people
in our community. A list of all the great leaders of our
region of all races and backgrounds would easily fill this
newspaper. But we must continue to raise the bar of excellence
and demand of ourselves no less than that which we demand
of our society and its leaders: compassion, reason, forethought,
wisdom and hard work. In this way, working together with
our local, state and national leaders, I believe we may
provide ourselves, our children and our children’s
children a future of hope, prosperity and civility. DBJ
(Jon
Levingston is a Clarksdale businessman and chairman of the
ad hoc citizens committee that worked to make the Coahoma
County Higher Education a reality. Additionally, he led
the successful Delta State University/Coahoma Community
College effort to raise the $6 million to renovate the property.
He has been integral to the development of the partnership’s
curriculum.)
