BEFORE WILLYERD COLLIER ’75 RETIRED in June as director of the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies, he wanted to bring back to campus alumni from the College’s Minority Pre-Med Program of the 1970s.
“I wanted you to come back, talk about the good and bad things that happened, all with hopes they might be instructive to what the College is doing today,” Collier told the alums and their Wabash faculty gathered at the MXI for the Minority Pre-Med Program Reunion.
The timing couldn’t have been better.
The College’s new Wabash Liberal Arts Immersion Program (WLAIP) had begun. The four-week summer session was created after the Wabash National Study found that students of color were reporting less favorable experiences and were graduating at rates unsatisfying to Wabash. Deeper conversations revealed issues centered less around race and more on disparities in academic capital among this group of students. As WLAIP Director and Professor of Psychology Bobby Horton put it, “Anyone who comes to college with limited capital is going to have a difficult time in the transition. The WLAIP seeks to provide that capital to students who, historically, have had less of it: students of color, first-generation students, and lower-income students.”
Alumni learned about the new program and shared their own experiences in honest conversations that were equal parts difficult, inspiring, and illuminating.
And there was plenty of humor and genuine affection.
During a discussion about the Pre-Med program, Dr. Larry Walker ’77 recalled his early arrival at the College for the program: “I was coming in from Memphis and it was a cultural shock to come to Wabash.”
Professor Emeritus of Biology Aus Brooks ’61 smiled at his former student: “It was a cultural shock to the faculty, too.” The room filled with laughter.
“We had a real Memphis contingent in that group,” Brooks added. “It was more of an education for us than for you guys.”
On the last night of the reunion, the alumni were presented with certificates thanking each man for “participating in the Minority Pre-Med Program as well as academic, cultural, and social programming at the Malcolm X Institute.
“You paved the way for the success of future students of color at Wabash College.”