Soup and Substance event looks back on lack of diversity at CMU in 1979


GEAR UP director Mary Henley reflects on time as CMU student


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Director of GEAR UP Mary Henley speaks to students and faculty Feb. 13 at a Soup and Substance  luncheon in the Bovee University Center. 

In 1979, Central Michigan University had only a 2 percent diversity rate, Mission Street was a two-lane road and four-person dorm rooms were being converted to five-person living spaces. 

In the same year, the future director of Central's GEAR UP and 4S Pathways to Academic Student Success was a 17 year-old African American who was experiencing culture shock and a severe lack of preparation before coming to college.

"My world in Flint was not very culturally diverse," Mary Henley said about her hometown at the "Soup and Substance" luncheon hosted by the Office of Diversity Education at noon Feb. 13. 

Soup and Substance is a monthly series that aims to present research on diversity and the under-represented communities at CMU. Wednesday's segment aimed to recognize the obstacles of being a first-generation African American student in a time when resources were of minimal availability. 

In Flint, Henley lived in an African American community, attended an entirely African American church and all of her friends were African American. 

She arrived to Mount Pleasant to discover she was the only African American student assigned to live in the all-female Beddow Hall. 

"I came here with no scholarships (and) very little preparations," Henley said. "I was a good student but I was not prepared for CMU. I was not prepared for the culture shock." 

While Henley said she applauds the university for offering programs and resources such as Academic Advising and Assistance, the Office of Student Success and First-Year Experience classes, she honored how far Central has improved and how much more it can advance. 

"I didn't know how to study, I didn't know how to pick classes (and) I didn't know how to meet people on campus," Henley said, describing a landscape where transportable headphones and earbuds didn't exist, and dinners were spent longing for companionship. 

She said she was basically miserable and struggling to master essential skills such as reading a syllabus and making proper submissions on her assignments. 

She ended her first semester at CMU on academic probation – a tendency which followed her even into her sophomore year and first romantic relationship at college. 

"I was very, very isolated," she said, emphasizing her trails could have been made more bearable with programs such as Pathways to Academic Student Success, a program centered on establishing time management and studying skills to students early in their collegiate careers. 

Henley said Pathways Program offers a setting for students and faculty to serve as mentors. 

"They bring students into their offices and those students become a part of their world and they can look after those students and make sure if they have needs (they double-check that) the entire university is serving each student," she said.

ODE director Sapphire Cureg said the event was meant to bring topics of Black History Month home and to acknowledge diversity's persistence to grow on campus. 

Cureg said by spotlighting Henley's story she was offering a tale of individuals being resilient in unknown territory – which is a setting CMU continues to expand away from. 

"Please remember that Black History Month is not just for the month of February," Cureg said. "It's through all the year, day in and day out (we) must celebrate. Anytime (and) anywhere." 

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About Samantha Shriber

Samantha Shriber is a staff reporter at Central Michigan Life and is a Saint Clair Shores ...

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