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| Dr. Jennifer Friend, Dr. Loyce Caruthers, and Kathy Walter-Mack |
University of Missouri Kansas City faculty members are working on a collaborative research project titled, “A Quest for Educational opportunities in Kansas City’s Desegregation Era: Listening to the Voices of African American Administrators, Teachers and Students.”
As you may recall, MCC history links back to the Kansas City Public School District. In 1915, the Kansas City community was asking for local higher education opportunities. In response to the growing need, the Kansas City school board approved the post-secondary education experiment called the Kansas City Polytechnic Institute. The Kansas City Polytechnic Institute was officially established by the Board of Education on May 29, 1915, as the first public institution of higher education in Kansas City.
In a building located in downtown Kansas City at 11th and Locust, classes began on September 7, 1915, with an estimated 200 students. In the beginning, the school included a junior college, a teacher training school, a high school, a mechanic arts school, a trade school, and a business training school. A nurse training school was quickly added.
The institution was governed by Kanas City Board of Education until 1964, when seven suburban school districts -- Belton, Center, Grandview, Hickman Mills, Lee’s Summit, North Kansas City and Raytown -- joined forces with the Kansas City School District to create the Metropolitan Community College District. That year, the College Board of Trustees was also elected to govern the district and relinquish governing authority from the Kansas City Board of Education.
An interdisciplinary team of faculty at the UMKC School of Education received a Dean’s Small Grant for the 2016-17 academic year to initiate a multi-platform digital video and website design project. This month the team began collecting video and audio oral history interviews with African American educators, students and community members who formed the legacy and struggle for educational equity during Kansas City, Missouri’s school desegregation era (1971-1997).
The team is working to draw on the past, to seek new ways address social justice in educational communities.
MCC’s current chief of Staff, Kathy Walter-Mack was interviewed for the project about her experience and her role.
Before joining MCC, Walter-Mack served as general counsel for the Kansas City Missouri School District, where she was responsible for a staff of 13 and an annual budget of $3 million, as well as oversight of the district’s five out¬side law firms. She provided legal advice to the superintendent and senior administrative staff and directed the strategies that led to the suc-cessful resolution of the district’s decades-long school desegregation case.
“When I look back, I think it was a daring and courageous endeavor and Judge Clark was courageous for implementing some of the orders he called for, when some portions of the community were often highly critical. In the end, everyone was working together to create something truly unique for Kanas City. While there are many lessons to learn from the entire era, the ultimate focus was trying to address the educational needs of minority students,” explained Walter-Mack.
The research team is working to document 30 to 40 similar oral histories, collect historical artifacts, images, and other important memorabilia and then will design and launch an interactive website with teaching guides that will provide free access to those resources.
MCC faculty will have access to those teaching guides. Also, MCC is one of 19 partners who have a small role in the grant participation.
The public website, kcdeseg@umkc.edu, is expected to launch in September of 2016, but for now you can follow the project on Twitter @kcdeseg and Facebook at KC Desegregation.
