The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
CommUNITY day message: ‘This Land is Your Land’
MIDDLETOWN » Middlesex Community College held “a moment of CommUNITY” at its Middletown campus Thursday.
While celebrating the beginning of a new academic year, members of the college community gathered to counter the recent extraordinary events in the country where others seek to create division and promote hate,” the administration said in a press release. “These actions are the opposite of what Middlesex stands for.”
Dean of Academic Affairs and Interim President Steve Minkler began with remarks acknowledging MxCC’s “students first” commitment.
“We are a college that has a shared responsibility to cultivate the common good—sustainability, global awareness, citizenship, and the equity and inclusion of all. We are a place that has courageous conversations, and open, honest, peaceful dialogue,” he said. “We are a college that strives to meet and sustain the highest standards of excellence in all that we do.”
Dean of Students Adrienne Maslin followed with a reading of Dr. Kent M. Keith’s poem, “The Paradoxical Commandments,” and students Gilianne Oyolo, Marina Capezzone, and Daniel Ortiz performed “This Land is Your Land.”
“MxCC is committed to nondiscrimination and to making Middlesex Community College a safe place where all students, staff and faculty can learn, work, create and grow,” according to its mission. “MxCC is a place where the rich diversity of the community is celebrated, and where acts of discrimination and hate are not accepted,” the release reads.
“The MxCC administration stands firm in supporting the college’s mission to put students at the center of all they do and to help students achieve their individual goals.”