JACKSON, Tenn. — May 22, 2018 — 51社区 and Lane College received a second grant from the Wabash Center to promote collaboration and racial reconciliation through a greater understanding of African-American religious history.
The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion is funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and located at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Union and Lane received their first grant from the Wabash Center last year and used it to create a jointly-offered race and reconciliation course taught by faculty members from both campuses. Frank Anderson, director for Union鈥檚 Center for Racial Reconciliation, said through that course, leadership on both campuses saw a need for a better awareness of African-American religious history.
鈥淲e saw that a focus on this would aid us in creating a culture that is more conducive to diversity,鈥� Anderson said.
Both Union and Lane are religious institutions; Union is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, and Lane is associated with the Christian Methodist Episcopal church.
The Wabash grant will allow each institution to select several faculty members to study African-American religious history intensely and together, Anderson said. The period of study will begin in August and will continue through September 2019. Anderson will be a co-director for the study alongside Daryll Coleman, division chair for liberal studies and education at Lane.
鈥淭he more our faculty understands the import of diversity, understands some of the underlying factors that either help us or hinder us where developing a culture of diversity is concerned, the more that those things are understood, the more we can make an environment where students of different ethnic groups will feel more comfortable,鈥� Anderson said.
He said numbers matter when it comes to diversity at a predominantly white institution like Union, but the culture matters much more. He said the collaborative effort between Lane and Union serves as an example to the broader Jackson community, which tends to be divided based on ZIP code.
鈥淚 call it the 38305 - 38301 divide,鈥� Anderson said. 鈥淲hen these prominent institutions make substantive efforts to reach across that divide, it is better for both sides of Jackson.鈥�