{"id":34469,"date":"2017-08-17T13:14:12","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T17:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=34469"},"modified":"2020-08-25T13:45:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T17:45:01","slug":"sawin-pannell-explore-emus-history-increasing-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/sawin-pannell-explore-emus-history-increasing-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Sawin, Pannell explore EMU’s history of increasing diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

As deep racial tensions<\/a> continued to play out on the national stage, Eastern Mennonite University faculty and staff explored elements of their university\u2019s own history and diversity in a breakout session during the Aug. 15-16 faculty-staff conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Professors Mark Sawin<\/a> and Melody Pannell<\/a> presented a historical overview, a personal account and general observations relating to diversity titled \u201cShifting Paradigms, Shifting Power: Diversity and a New Radical Anabaptist Community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before presenting highlights from a timeline of African American inclusion<\/a> that shows EMU\u2019s increasing diversity, Sawin noted that as a historian, he is \u201ckeenly aware\u201d that once a history is written, it is codified and becomes the<\/i> story. But no historian knows everything or can include every story, he said, and so crafting a historical narrative inevitably silences countless voices and leaves out their experiences and perspectives.<\/p>\n

With that limitation in mind, Sawin described aspects of the university\u2019s struggles \u2014 and the context of the local and broader Mennonite communities\u2019 struggles \u2014 with racial integration and inclusiveness. In 1925, for example, Virginia Mennonite Conference disapproved of marriages and close friendships between races. In the 1930s, though, Eastern Mennonite School students began crossing racial boundaries in their community involvements. In 1949, the first black student enrolled full time at Eastern Mennonite College. Ultimately, EMC would become a forerunner of college integration, and when in 1959 The Richmond Times Dispatch<\/i> ran a story on six Virginia colleges accepting black students, EMC was declared the first to do so.<\/p>\n

Sawin pointed out that tumultuous times such as the Great Depression or after World War II spawned change, which was often initiated not by established leadership but by students and faculty activists.<\/p>\n

Fellow presenter Melody Pannell\u2019s own story is very much a part of EMU\u2019s widening diversity. Pannell graduated as one of 70 American students of color from EMU in 1997, and would go on to become the director of the university\u2019s multicultural services and a professor. In her presentation she traced her own story as a Mennonite girl from Harlem<\/a>, Ne<\/a>w Yo<\/a>rk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pannell\u2019s mother was a plain-dressed conservative Mennonite from a German-Swiss, Pennsylvania Dutch community in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Her father, from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was an African American who was introduced to the Mennonite church through Newlinville Mennonite Church as a teenager. Later he became the first African American ordained pastor through Lancaster Mennonite Conference at Seventh Avenue Church. They married in 1964 while serving in Harlem.<\/p>\n

While her father\u2019s dreams of attending EMC were never fulfilled, Pannell would become \u201ca loyal, supportive, dedicated and active member of the campus community.\u201d It wasn\u2019t easy being biracial at EMU, half \u201cethnic Mennonite\u201d but still noticeable in Lehman Auditorium in \u201cthe sea of straight brown and blond hair, and blue eyes,\u201d and still often treated as \u201cother.\u201d But her admissions counselor had told her, \u201cYou need EMU, but EMU needs you,\u201d and she began to believe that her role here would be \u201can exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it would be an exchange. Her professors, she said, cared about her life and trajectory \u2014 which is now part of African American people\u2019s own legacies in the story of EMU.<\/p>\n

Sawin and Pannell closed the session with several observations about the the EMU community:<\/p>\n