Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | March 21, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 21 NAACP calls for answers in CDO's departure V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L W e are agitated and enraged that once again, our chief diversity officer in Worcester is leaving. Our community's hopes are once again being frustrated, denied, and delayed until another time. Worcester's Black and Brown communities invested in this process and position are now le wondering why these smart, intelligent, and dedicated women hired with glowing qualifications are leaving aer such a short time? We have gone backward. With a population so diverse, we now only have one person of color in the leadership of the administration and no Black women. We must remember our history so we can avoid repeating it. Worcester's Black community remembers this history quite clearly. Worcester's first CDO, Malika Carter, was hired January 2016 in response to the U.S. Department of Justice listening sessions on race. She le just over a year later in July 2017. She was quick- ly replaced by Suja Chacko, an insider from the human resources department, in March 2018, but she also le aer less than two years. en the city hired Ste- fanie Williams, a Worcester native. We felt as though we were finally on track. During the George Floyd movement, the NAACP, Worcester's Black Families Together, City Councilor Khrystian King, and other community organizations made the CDO position one of our negotiating priorities, advocating the next CDO be a cabinet-level position, existing independently of the human resources department, with pay equitable to the importance of the position. is was our effort to fix something we knew wasn't quite working. We had hoped. But the past couple of years have been difficult for Worcester's Black and Brown communities. We were repeatedly told racism didn't exist within the Worcester Police Department. We've watched as the elected leaders from our communities were frequently attacked. Proposals to address systemic racism have been delayed or sidestepped. e once-in-a- lifetime infusion of American Rescue Plan Act funds to upli our communities is looking less and less like it will address longstanding inequities. BY FRED TAYLOR, SR. Special to the WBJ The above Editorial is the opinion of the WBJ Editorial Board. The Viewpoint column, the A Thousand Words cartoon, and the Word from the Web commentary represent the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of WBJ or its staff. WBJ welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Send them to bkane@wbjournal.com. A T H O U SA N D WO R D S B Y R A M Ó N L . S A N D O V A L Changing of the guard in higher ed Fred Taylor, Sr. en we learn late Friday, March 4, the third diversity officer is leaving. is departure raises so many questions. Why did Ms. Williams leave? Did she feel unsupported? Undervalued? Ignored? Marginalized? Are we serious about diver- sity and equity in Worcester? Why is there such difficulty keeping someone in this position? Is the position a smokescreen? e city administration should do some genuine and humble self-assessment. How can you tell Black and Brown people you are serious about diversity, yet not one diversity officer has stayed in the position for two years? As a community, we are calling for answers and transparency. is is not the news I wanted to get as Black History Month concludes. e time for symbolic gestures and resolutions has passed; today we are forced to stop and re-evaluate. Effective immediately, the Worcester NAACP is withdrawing as an institutional member of Worcester's Tercentenary Committee. We are demanding the city not rush to hire a replacement simply to check a box. Our community needs answers first. We don't want symbols; we want true change. Black leaders in Worcester are discussing what has happened. But I now also want to speak as Fred Taylor, as a Black man in this city, a graduate of our public schools, a resident of Main South, and community leader. I speak now as someone who has dedicated the past few years of his life to addressing institutional racism, inequalities in schooling, policing, and employment in Worcester. I thought we were moving forward, but Ms. Williams's departure shines a bright light directly onto City Hall, raising serious institutional issues. Ms. Williams's departure jeopardizes any and all efforts to dismantle institutional racism in Worcester and loudly raises one unavoidable question, "Why aren't we making progress?" Speaking personally, I am devastated by sister Williams's departure. It hurts. And while I will tone down much of my anger and frustration, I am not willing to hold all of it in. I must express some of it. is is serious, and serious issues deserve much, much more than a quiet press release at the end of the day on a Friday. We will keep our eyes on the prize, but we will not do it in silence. Fred Taylor, Sr. is the president of Worcester's NAACP Unit. Editor's note: Worcester's NAACP Unit published this letter in its social media on March 6. It has been reprinted here in its entirety. W O ur state, and the Central Massachusetts region, are rich with colleges and universities, with a total of 15 headquartered here. By the end of the year, more than half of those colleges will have a new president who started their job over the last two years. e coronavirus pan- demic has fueled significant turnover in the leadership of some of the region's most influential institutions, as the higher education industry faces major headwinds in the coming decade. And it's not just here. Colleges across the nation are seeing their leaders depart with greater frequency. In 2006, U.S. college presidents stayed in their position for an average of 8.5 years. By 2017, the average dropped to 6.5 years, according to the latest study from the American Council on Education. e Central Massachusetts presidents who have announced they are stepping down this year all beat that average: Dean College's Paula Rooney is retiring aer 27 years in the corner office; Francesco Cesareo at Assumption University is retiring aer 15 years at the school, and Worces- ter Polytechnic Institute's Laurie Leshin is leaving to lead NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory aer eight years on the job. As WBJ Staff Writer Katherine Hamilton points out in her story "How do you replace a college president?" on page 10, finding suitable candidates for a top job in higher education is far from easy, given the variety of constituencies who want a say in the search, the necessity for confidentiality, and understanding the present and future needs of the institution. e heaviest li for a college president in the past few decades has been to serve as chief rainmaker, working with alumni and top donors to bring in millions. While that remains a vital part of the job, presidents must now deal with the short- and long-term impacts of the pandemic, and the fact the Northeast has fewer high school graduates matriculating to college. Expanding programs, broadening their geographic target area, courting non-traditional students, and add- ing online delivery to their portfolio of student options are among the many options in sorting out the right path forward. Regardless of who the WPI, Assumption, and Dean presidential searches yield, Central Mass. is entering a new era in its institutions of higher ed. Because of the historic and high-profile nature, their economic clout as major employers, and the increasing role of the eds-and-meds economy in the region, college presidents are key leaders in the business community. Some will broaden their institutions connections in the community, while others may stay largely within the walls of their campus. We hope the new presidents who step in, along with the current presidents who are most- ly fairly new as well, will see their success as tied to the success of the whole region. W

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