"What is Hip? Tell me. Tell me. Do you think you know?" -- Paul Dale, Interim President Paradise Valley Community College

As a kid growing up right outside of San Francisco,I listened often to these song lyrics by the then very popular funk-rock-soul band Tower of Power. Tower of Power was made up of a mix of musicians that very much represented the diversity of the Bay Area in the early 1970s – African-American, Chicano, and white. In many ways the faces and sounds of this band reflected my high school – about 50 percent white and 50 percent Asian, Latino/Latina, Filipino, and African American. It was in these high school halls that I lived in a world of diversity and very real engagement and connection – not in an abstract sense – but very much a real part of our collective young lives. We learned about each others’ lives not through a workshop or a diversity program, but as teammates, classmates and as mixed boy friend/girl friend couples. And in many ways, we all thought we were hip – and despite our ethnic differences, wearing much the same clothing and listening to the same music – part of our “hipness” came from the mosaic of the milieu.

So in some respects as I have traveled my professional life with stops in the mid-west and in Arizona, it seems somewhat remedial that we are still struggling to define, understand, live, and value diversity and inclusion; that we are still having to teach the basics of intercultural understanding and intercultural competence. Once I pull myself away from my City-by-the-Bay past and open my eyes to the realities of 2009, it is clear to me that our persistence to teach diversity and inclusion, even if viewed as remedial, is critical. If you take time to disaggregate student success data by gender, age, and ethnicity across our district you will still find that student success is not equally distributed across all student cohorts. You will also find if you talk to student groups, that not all students feel comfortable and welcome on our campuses. If you talk to colleagues (myself included), we still don’t fully know and understand all there is to know about the increasingly diverse student populations. And, you will also find, if you look inward, there are feelings and thoughts you have about “others” that are not fully congruent with the values of diversity and inclusion.

Now is the time to connect with opportunities to continue to develop and live a diverse and inclusive MCCCD life – take the MOSAIC series, embrace and utilize the Diversity Infusion program, and support and participate in the programs sponsored by your college diversity committee. Simply choose to live a more diverse life – make a commitment to meet and engage with ten students each week that are different from you, expose your family to cultural activities that are new and different, or take time to read culturally diverse literature. The better able we are to understand the needs of our students, the greater probability that we will be open to teaching, learning, and service strategies that lead to increased student success.

It is “hip” to understand value and appreciate the diversity all around us. Our lives are enriched, our futures are brighter and it is the right thing to do. By the way, I still think Tower of Power is hip – check them out