It has been an honor to serve you this past academic year. The organization is making great strides, and in order to continue we must remember the vision established in the conception of CBE and GEBS. For those of you who were unable to attend, I invite you to read the following which can be found on CBE's page on Garrett's website:
BISHOP EDSEL AMMONS, CBE FOUNDING FACULTY MEMBER, G-ETS FACULTY, 1960s-‘70s
"Garrett's black faculty and students have not conceived of nor designed a plan for creating two racially distinct communities within the seminary. Our concern, consistent with the faith which roots in the gospel, is to prompt, to prod, to engage us all in a uniquely different approach to the shared goals of an inclusive community. To call it by another name, what we seek is a healthy and legitimate cultural pluralism which allows for a black presence at Garrett which is not defined (and thus delimited) by whites and which confirms the justice of group equality and not simply individual equality. The goal is not new. What is new --and very likely the focus of much, if not most, of the anxiety now felt-- is the initiative of black faculty and black students who insist that the goal must begin to become a reality in the life of the school, that the old definition of community in Garrett is invalid and deserves to be discarded, and that the structures of valid community can emerge only out of the agonies we are experiencing" (1971).
It is important for us to understand this vision and not lose sight of it. This is a vision that we must communicate to others.
I bow now humbly and take my leave as your Chairperson.
Shalom,
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