“Leading From Pulpit & Podium” with Ethel Scurlock

Show Notes:

Dr. Ethel Young Scurlock is a leader in two different spheres: education and religion. She is Dean of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Luckyday Residential College. Dr. Scurlock is also the pastor of two small Baptist churches in Mississippi, First United Missionary Baptist Church and Alvis Grove Missionary Baptist Church. She is an award-winning teacher and the author of Trusting God in Crisis, Chaos, and Confusion. 

These two vocations give Dr. Scurlock a perspective of leadership that she shares with us. Her energy and passion for her students and her congregants is clear, as is her determination to empower future generations and leave the world a better place that she found it.

Resources:

Watch Dr. Scurlock’s speech at the 60th Anniversary of the Integration of the University of Mississippi (at 56 minutes) here. 

Buy Trusting God in Crisis, Chaos, and Confusion here.

Learn more about Dr. Scurlock here, and learn more about the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College here.

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 Hi, I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:02
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:04
Today we're talking to Dr. Ethel Young Scurlock, the dean of the Sally McDonald Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi.

Eddie Rester 00:14

She's been an associate professor of English and African American Studies. She's been a Senior Fellow of the Luckyday Residential College. She comes to us with a lot of academic credentials, but she also comes to us as a pastor of two local churches.

Chris McAlilly 00:31

She's in the Missionary Baptist tradition and is a heck of a preacher. I mean, she can bring the heat, but she also is a woman of just real depth of soul and passion. You can hear it. She's an encourager, and she brings a level of intellectual rigor to her work, and a desire to see the Honors College play a role in empowering the next generation.

Eddie Rester 01:02

One of the things I've always appreciated about Dr. Scurlock, Dean Scurlock, is just she's got this bubbling energy. She draws people to her. But she also understands her role. What is it that she does? What is it that she is about as a pastor, as a professor, but also leading the Honors College? And so she is, in many ways, she has a place in history. And we talk about that during the podcast, how she sees history, how she sees her place as the first African American woman to serve as a dean at the University of Mississippi. But we talk in general about how she sees leadership and why she's an effective leader.

Chris McAlilly 01:47

Yeah, I heard her speak last year at the 60th anniversary of the integration of the University of Mississippi, when James Meredith integrated the school, and we talk about that. We talk about the history of the university and the state of Mississippi, and kind of her place within that. She said, one of the phrases that I wrote down is, "what does it look like for us to serve the moment that we're living in?" And so, you know, we can learn from history. We have to engage the moment that we're in, and hopefully empower others along the way as well, so they can live into a future with flourishing, as well. So this was a great episode. We hope that you like it, share it.

Eddie Rester 02:38
Don't just like it. Love it. We need you to love this episode, in every possible way. Embrace it. Is that right?

Chris McAlilly 02:47

Share it with your people. We're always glad that you're with us on The Weight, and we look forward to seeing you next week. [INTRO] Life can be heavy, so heavy, in fact that the weight we carry can sometimes cause us to lose hope.

Eddie Rester 03:01
But we've all come across those people in life who seem to be experiencing the same world we live in, except they maintain a great depth of joy and hope.

Chris McAlilly 03:10
A former generation called this gravitas. It was their description of a soul that had gained enough weightiness to be attractive, like all things with a gravitational pull.

Eddie Rester 03:21

Those are the people we want to talk to. On this podcast, we talk to pastors, entrepreneurs, artists, mental health experts, and many others.

Chris McAlilly 03:31
We'll create space for heavy topics, but we'll be listening for a quality of soul that could be called gravitas.

Eddie Rester 03:38
Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 03:40
We're here today with Dr. Ethel Scurlock. Dr. Scurlock, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Ethel Young Scurlock 03:48 Thank you, I'm elated to be here.

Chris McAlilly 03:50

We're excited to have you. And maybe for folks who don't know your work, maybe just kind of give us a sketch of what you're doing in the world and kind of the scope of your work at the University of Mississippi.

Ethel Young Scurlock 04:08

So at the university, I serve as an associate professor of English and African American Studies. I've been in that position for about 26, 27 years now. And so I love that work. It's really kind of getting us to celebrate our past. I also have served as the Senior Faculty Fellow for the Luckyday Residential College where I led the academic components of that program and now I'm currently serving as the Dean of the Sally McDonald Barksdale Honors College.

Eddie Rester 04:40
Both my daughters are part of the Sally McDonald Barksdale Honors College, so thank you for taking good care of them.

Ethel Young Scurlock 04:48

Well, thank you. I'm so excited to be in this place. It's been amazing. The students are absolutely incredible. And I get to work with the best faculty, the best students, and the best parents on the planet. So thank you. And thank you for your work that you do on our leadership council. We really appreciate you.

Eddie Rester 05:04
I know that that's not your only role, though. You've got your role university but you're also a pastor. So say a little bit about that.

Ethel Young Scurlock 05:13

Okay, well I serve as the pastor of two congregations. They both are small congregations, but I love them. They're just amazing. One is in Batesville, Mississippi. It's First United Missionary Baptist Church. And then also in Oakland, Mississippi, I serve as the pastor of Alvis Grove Missionary Baptist Church. They're very different churches. The one in Batesville is probably about 20 years old. The one in Oakland is over 100 years old. And I don't know how much you want to know. You'll cut this, right? So I can kind of say what I want to. You cut out what you don't want.

Eddie Rester 05:47
We don't do much cutting. So yeah. Yeah, say what, you know. Yeah, I mean...

Ethel Young Scurlock 05:51

What's interesting is I never wanted to be a pastor and never was pursuing that, really even struggled with my call to ministry, because I grew up in the Baptist Church. My father was a Baptist pastor. They were not celebratory of women in ministry at all. And finally accepted this call to preach, and started the work. And basically, it's just to help this small congregation out. Their pastor planted the church. He was moving to Oklahoma. They didn't have any money, I didn't need any money, because I was truly blessed. And I'm like, I'll just come over there to help you. And so I helped them kind of get their finances set. I helped them create some structure. And after I'd done that, I called the founding pastor and said, "I think your people are ready to do a search, and tell me how you want to do the search." And he was like, "Oh, we're not doing a search. You're the pastor." So that's how I became a pastor. You know, I always say, the Bible says, "Your blessings will overtake you," and they overtook me. In the second church, my first husband was actually a pastor. I don't know if you all know this story about me, but my first husband pastored that church, so I would be at the church in Batesville at 9 and join him at 11. But at 11, because they were such a traditional old church, they didn't really believe in women in ministry. So I would sit in the congregation and support him. And he passed away suddenly. He had a massive heart attack. And they asked would I helped them transition as an interim pastor, and I did. And then they asked would I please stay. So I did not apply for either of these positions. I was not looking to pastor. I talked to my children about it, and both of them were saying they wanted to be in both churches, and they were like, "Mom, if you leave one of the churches, we're still gonna stay in both of them." So they wanted both of those churches. They both celebrated God in very different ways. And both of those churches were vital in developing my children and who they are and connected them to the state. So it's been imperative to me to serve in those roles. They've given me as much as I've given them.

Chris McAlilly 07:51

I want to, for a person, clearly, you do a good job, and then your blessings overtake you. But I wonder how you think about, you know, for people, there are a lot of people that have a lot of roles. I wonder how you think about the various vocations that you have as pastor, as an educator, and as an institutional leader? Do you think of those as siloed? Or do you think of them as integrated?

Ethel Young Scurlock 08:21

Okay, I think about them in two ways. So first of all, I think I'm doing the same thing in each place. So whether I'm in church, or whether I'm administrating on the campus, you have to have a certain amount of administrative ability. You've got to be able to manage budgets. You've got to be able to do some strategic planning. You've got to be able to work with people, empower people, try to figure out how to move people into leadership. And then in terms of what you're delivering in terms of... I feel like whether I'm preaching or teaching in the classroom, I want to make sure that my information is accurate. I always want to make sure that we understand history. I also want us to better understand our place in history and how we project into the future. So for example, I have a friend who wrote a book years ago, Dolan Hubbard, that talked about the African American sermon in the literary or tradition. And when he describes Black preaching, what he says is that the Black preaching, every black preacher, every Sunday, has to take this past, connect it to the present, and then use that to empower people to manage the future. So I feel like that's what I do every Sunday morning. But I also feel like that's what I'm doing in the classroom. I want my students to take this information that I'm bringing to the table, and think about how that empowers you to live a better life, whatever life you want to live, whatever it looks like. I'm not trying to craft your life. How can this information be used to push you forward and empower you to do the work that you feel like you're called to do as an individual? Now, it's siloed because I try to be very careful about the separation of church and state, especially in my position as a professor. For example, in the Honors College, we teach an Honors 102 course where we're interrogating religion. And we want our students to think big ideas about religion and know different thought processes and know different faiths' systems. And so, in that case, I'm not there to evangelize. I'm there to teach. I'm there to offer opportunities so that we can learn and understand people from different backgrounds, and that we understand, honor, and respect people, regardless of what they believe. So I want to always make sure that I'm separating that when I'm in the classroom. However, you can see that's similar to our mission as Christian ministers also, because we're never to try to stronghold people, you know. We're not here to make somebody accept Christ. We are here to offer Christ and let people make their own decisions about how they live their lives. So in that way, I guess they're similar, even though I'm saying they're different.

Eddie Rester 10:53

Yeah. So one piece of that that's a little different, though, is this past year, you took on the role of the Dean of the Honors College. And so that's a different piece from teaching in a classroom of the Dean of the Honors College. And so that's a different piece from teaching in a classroom with students, pastoring a church. I know there's some things that probably are the same. You're still empowering people. You're still casting vision. What have you found that's given you joy in that role, sitting as Dean? I know that as Dean, you're one of the key leaders at the University of Mississippi. You're helping set the agenda, the vision of what happens at a major public university going forward. So how does that piece fit in for you?

Ethel Young Scurlock 11:37

So I'm going to talk about it two ways. So first, I'm going to talk about something that's not so much joy, but it helps me. And so one of the things that I said earlier was strategic planning. So I'm having to create a strategic plan for the Honors College right now. As I've done this strategic plan, and as I audited my budgets here, I'm also going back doing that same thing for my church. In fact, I just met with Deacons in one church. And I said, "I dare not balance the budget at the University of Mississippi and not come here and hold us up to rigorous expectations also in the church." So it's helping me in some ways even become a better pastor, and strengthening what I'm doing administratively. The joy I find in both places, though, is still that every day contact with students. What I love about being Dean of the Honors College is that it does not take me away from undergraduate students. In many of our disciplines, if you're a dean, you don't get to do a lot of student-facing work, because you're working with your faculty, and you're working with so many different things. Because we only serve undergraduates, and I don't have faculty members employed just by the Honors College, I get to see the students. I've purposefully kept my office on the first floor. We have a dean's office on the third floor and one on the first floor, I decided to be on the first floor. I tried to keep my door open. I want students to come in. I want them to feel like this is a place that they can come and figure out how to navigate issues at the university. So that's my greatest joy when I have a smart student that's gotten stuck, and I can get them out of the quicksand.

Chris McAlilly 13:10

I want to know who is someone who did that for you? Because I hear you saying, "This is something that is deeply a part of who I am and how I want to embody this role." I wonder who was someone who helped you when you got stuck, and needed some help to get out of the quicksand?

Ethel Young Scurlock 13:27

Oh, we would be here all day if I told you all the times I got stuck in the quicksand and somebody pulled me out. I think about key people like, you know, golly, I can't even think of his name. There was, I had a... I always talk about him. And just because I'm on this broadcast, I forget his name, but I will say, an administrator at the University of Tennessee. I attended the University of Tennessee as an undergrad. We were about 6% African American at the time, and really trying to figure my way out, trying to figure out how to manage these different things. And I just showed up in his office one day. He ended up hiring me as a tutor when they looked at my transcripts. So I started tutoring students, and then thought maybe I want to go to grad school. So I went to talk to him about it. Said I wanted to go to Ohio State and he had a trip where he took people--I'm trying to make the story is short. And he said, "Well, I'll take you to Ohio State if you would go to Bowling Green State University and explore," and I'm like, "I don't want to live in Kentucky." He was like, "Well, that's good because it's in Ohio." So I didn't even know about this institution. But he made me visit, connected me to resources, and I actually fell in love with how they fit into my academic program. And I went on to earn the MA and a PhD from Bowling Green State University because this administrator, who I did not know. He was just a Black man I knew who helped Black people. I just showed up in his office. And he step by step kind of got me to places, not knowing where it would take me. And also Dolan Hubbard, who was a phenomenal scholar, who was a professor at the University of Tennessee when I was there and went on to work at University of Georgia, retired as chair of English at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. But he was a wonderful mentor also. Also just kind of, you know, "Look at this. Do this." So yes, I've had people each step of the way just kind of push me, make me see myself in ways that I did not see myself. And even now, I can name so many people at the University of Mississippi since my arrival, started with Gloria Kellum. I always like to give her credit for seeing things in me that I did not see for myself, see in myself.

Eddie Rester 15:33
In your track, through your education, was dean of a school, was that part of your dream? Or what somebody saw in you? When did? How did that come about for you?

Ethel Young Scurlock 15:48

It absolutely was not on my trajectory. It was not on my Things To Do list. And people would say that to me, like, "Oh, you should be a dean." I'm like, "Oh, no, I should not." And so I did not in any way think that was what I wanted to do. In fact, when I was asked to serve as interim I was serving as Chair of African American Studies, still working with Luckyday. I was having a ball. I just loved what I was doing. And so when I accepted the position as interim, I told Lee Cohen, who was dean at the College of Liberal Arts, "Don't give my job away, because I'm coming back." And he was like, "Do you think you really want to come back?" "I absolutely do." And I told Dean, I was like, "I'm coming back. You better not give my job away." But I didn't come back. So he was like, "I think you're gonna love it when you get over there. I think it may fit you. But you figure that out as you go." So no, I didn't see it. Doug Sullivan-Gonzalez saw it in me. He called me about accepting the interim. And I'm so thankful for him. And I should have said his same earlier. I mean, it was Doug calling me up, calling me out, and them making me see myself in ways I had not seen myself. And what I realized when I was putting my materials together to finally apply is that I had been doing the work. But I was doing the work of a dean without the position of Dean. So I was doing things behind the scenes. I've always loved encouraging other people. I mean, like my dream job would be to come work for one of you. And then you tell me what your vision is for the church and tell me my little piece in it. And let me just go work the piece of your vision. That was like my really big, big dream, to do something like that. And then I ended up being the person that has to do the vision and find the people to work. But hopefully, I'll be able to retire one day and still come work for one of y'all.

Eddie Rester 17:33
There you go. You just let me know. Absolutely let me know.

Ethel Young Scurlock 17:36 Okay!

Chris McAlilly 17:37
I want to know, going back a little bit into your faith background. And my understanding is you grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, is that right?

Ethel Young Scurlock 17:47 I did.

Chris McAlilly 17:47

So tell us about Memphis and the Black church that you grew up in and kind of what the gift and the resources of that tradition within the American context, within the Southern context, kind of how you have found resources. Clearly, you're a person of hope and resilience and strength. And I wonder, what was it about kind of your faith background that kind of led to that as a dimension of who you are?

Ethel Young Scurlock 18:18

So I think a lot of that actually is inherited, in some ways from my father's faith. My father was my pastor, when I was growing up. My father was a civil rights worker. He was a student at LeMoyne-Owen College at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He helped organize sit ins. He worked with Martin Luther King, did library sit ins, restaurant sit ins, and he did a lot of that work in Memphis. And if you ever go back and look at some of those articles at the time, he was president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, President NAACP. So he always thought about justice and leadership, very much tied to his work in ministry. So I grew up in that umbrella. I grew up with him, bringing people to our churches and using that as a platform to empower people. And also one of the things that I loved. So I grew up in this middle class African American neighborhood. And my father went to LeMoyne College and Morehouse. And then my mother went to Tennessee State in Nashville, and so many of our neighbors had all gone to school together. Many of them were teaching together. My doctor was on my street, my pediatrician, people you probably have never heard of, but they were famous to us to us at the time, like Rufus Thomas live right across the street from me. So this wonderful neighborhood where everybody felt empowered, like it was an African American neighborhood, but everybody was kind of doing their thing. We had Judge Otis Higgs, who was one of the first Black men to run a big platform for mayor. He didn't win. Herenton with our first Black mayor. But everybody knew Otis Higgs. So I grew up in this kind of context where there was a sense of privilege in many ways in that neighborhood. But my church was a country church in Bartlett, Tennessee. Some if you know Bartlett, Bartlett was just straight country when my dad started pastoring there. It became a suburb over the time that I was growing up. So in that church, we had people who were part of the Black school before it was integrated on the property of our church. I'm probably saying too much.

Eddie Rester 20:18 No, this is good.

Chris McAlilly 20:19 So good.

Ethel Young Scurlock 20:20

But I want you to get... Okay. We had people who couldn't read in the church. But then we had these people who were coming in and on the news and owning car dealerships and buying houses in Bartlett. And because we were the only Black church in Bartlett, they were joining the church. So I grew up in this community where you had people who were below the poverty line. They lived literally on dirt roads. We would go pick them up on the bus, and you can barely find their houses, and also people that had a certain amount of wealth coming together. And one of the things I always loved about my father was that he was a bridge builder. He would bring people together. He never believed in suppressing voice. So like, for many years, we had a church secretary who was not literate. Now, that sounds funny, but my father never wanted to disempower her. So she was allowed to keep her position. But he brought somebody else in to assist her and support her so that she never felt like this new generation was displacing her. And you know, that's a challenge as a leader. How do you grow? How do you bring in new people without hurting other people? And what we have to remember as leaders--you probably didn't ask me all this, but I will say this--what I have to remember always, it helps me remember, as a leader, yes. When you hurt one person, and when you displace one person, it's not just that person. It's also their children, their friends, their siblings. There's so many people you cut. No, that's so good. I thank you so much for sharing. And a friend of mine in ministry would say, you know, "You've got to be careful. You can never try to separate the sheep from the goat. That's God's job." Never try to do that. Because if you do, if you ride that goat, you could hurt a lot of sheep in the process. So my daddy kind of displayed that without that language to go with it. So I don't know if I answered your question or not, but I said a whole lot.

Eddie Rester 21:53

I think what I want to push into that leadership concept for a bit. You learned a lot, obviously, from your dad, leading a church, particularly in Bartlett. I mean, I remember when I was at Ole Miss, and a friend took me to Bartlett. and Bartlett, still in 1990 still was kind of just a little bedroom community to Memphis. It was just starting to really explode. And now Memphis has moved past it. So he obviously had some pretty amazing gifts. But beyond what he's taught you, what are some of the other guardrails, some of the big important things for you, as you lead? Because you are a leader, an important leader for the University. So what are some of the things that guide you as you lead?

Ethel Young Scurlock 23:04

That's a great question. What are the things? I don't know if I can clearly identify things. I can think about thoughts. What are some of the thoughts that lead me? One, just integrity. I think personal integrity is important. I think it's so important that you lead a life of integrity, because you're going to make mistakes. And as you make mistakes, if people trust that you operate in integrity, it's easy for them to forgive your mistakes and work with you. So I try to always operate in integrity. That's very important to me. So I guess I'm thinking in terms of concepts. I'm also led by just a hunger and thirst for knowledge. Like, I always want to know more. I always want to dig deeply. I move slowly in some areas, because I don't want to move fast and make a mistake. So I believe in digging deeply into information and trying to make informed decisions. So those are some of my thought guardrails as a leader. I think it's important to be present. I think it's important that, you know, I was having a conversation with someone today about my work on our admissions committee. And I'm reading a lot of admissions essays for the Honors College and also for two other large programs. And I'm tired, but I think it's important for leaders to be present. I think it's important that we show people that we're willing to do the work that they do. Now, I do know I'm going to have to delegate a little bit more than I'm doing but I think leaders who only delegate set up a disconnected model. I also believe in servant leadership. I really believe in that. And I think it's a code word, a catch word now. Everybody says it. But I truly believe that it is our job to serve whatever organization we're appointed to, that it is not our job to ever display how smart we are, how gifted we are, how amazing we are. Our job is to try to figure out how we serve that unit. So even with my two churches, even though they're both Christian, and they're both Baptist, what they need in their communities, and the people who they serve are very different. So I can't have a cookie cutter model approach to what leadership looks like, because each church needs something different. They need me to show up in a very different way in each context. Does that help y'all?

Eddie Rester 25:50 Absolutely.

Chris McAlilly 25:51

Yeah, that's great. One of the things that I saw in your leadership last year was just navigating the 60th anniversary of the integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith. And you had a significant role in an event, there were a whole series of events that honored James Meredith. One of those was this event at the Ford Center, talking about how Meredith's mission continues, and you were given an opportunity to speak and I've listened to your speech--I feel like it was more of a sermon speech. It was amazing.

Ethel Young Scurlock 26:34 Thank you.

Chris McAlilly 26:34

And I want to, perhaps, for folks who haven't heard it, we'll make sure to link to it. Just, what were you trying to accomplish in that speech? And maybe just summarize some of your key points.

Ethel Young Scurlock 26:49

Okay, so I will say I prayed a lot, because I felt like it was an important moment. So let me start with something. I'm gonna say. They told me afterwards that the first person they tried to get was Barack Obama. So I was like, I'm glad they didn't tell me before, because I probably would have been like, there's no way I could have been Barack Obama. So I did a lot of praying. I'm like, "God, you know this is a critical moment. What needs to be said?" Like I'm saying, how do you serve the moment? And I think serving the moment meant reminding us this is the 60th anniversary, this is commemoration. This is truthfully one of the last kind of milestone years that he may or may not be alive. I'm not trying to kill him, but we're all aging. So this is a moment we may not get to do again. So how do we do it in a way that truly acknowledges how amazing this event was? How do we also acknowledge all the players around him? Because what I do with our students, when I'm recruiting Black, African American students in particular, I like to talk about the long history of integration and why that is not just important to this institution, it's important to the citizens of Mississippi. So I want to kind of cast it out a little bit bigger to say, who were the other citizens of Mississippi who wanted this? Who tried to do this? What were the failures? What was the big thing? I didn't want to take away from James Meredith. But I also wanted to say that this was important to the state of Mississippi, and that other Black people had tried this, and knowing the dangers and that people had been locked in insane asylums, that people had been attacked, he still was willing to take on this risk, integrating this institution or trying to integrate the instituition. So I wanted to make sure people understood the risk, what it meant to the state, and then think about how important it was and what he suffered as a student. It was not like, you know, I think sometimes people think he integrated. Then he came and got his degree, and everything was fine. And it was not. And so I wanted people to think about that long kind of pain and suffering that he went through at that moment. And then remember that, as I talked about, like I said with the sermon, that you take the history, you bring it up to today, and then how does that empower us for the future? I wanted people to leave there feeling like if James Meredith could do that, with all that was against him, well, when I look at what's against me, surely I can overcome some of what's in front of me. Surely. Maybe I can't overcome everything, but I can overcome some of it. I don't have anybody attacking me, calling me bad words, keeping me up at night, threatening my life. I don't have people with guns pointed at me as I go to do my job. So if my biggest issue is people don't like me, you know what? I'm good. I'm good. I can make it.

Eddie Rester 29:43
I went to an event this fall for Gentle Ben Williams. It was a...

Ethel Young Scurlock 29:48 Yes!

Eddie Rester 29:50 I think you were there.

Ethel Young Scurlock 29:51
I was there, down at the Jackson country club. That's right.

Eddie Rester 29:53
Yeah, they played the documentary about him integrating football at Ole Miss. And it was in 1972.

Ethel Young Scurlock 30:02 Yes.

Eddie Rester 30:03

Meredith was 1962. And I think sometimes we lose sight of the journey and the gift that happened. I mean, you're talking about 10 years between integrating the university and integrating football. And Meredith, you know, just the story. I've read the stories, you know, people dribbling the basketball in the room above him night after night after night. And that, yeah, there's a level of courage and determination that I think you were able to capture. Let me ask you, and this is going to be a simple question, I think. But why is it important for us to continue remembering, knowing, and telling that history?

Ethel Young Scurlock 30:52

Yeah, I think it's just important for us to remember that we didn't get to this place on a smooth pathway. It has not been easy. And because it's not been easy, but people still survived and thrived, and they were able to make it, we should not be so surprised when we have trials and tribulations. And we can navigate those things. And what we navigate is real. It's real to us. It's problematic. It's challenging. We get tired. But we've got to remember the fight that it took. I mean, for me, it energizes me. When I think about the fight that it took for us to get to where we are right now. And you talked about from '62 to '72. But think about even 1970 with Dr. Donald Cole and those 89 Black students who protested in Fulton Chapel. And everybody at Ole Miss for years talked about how much they loved Don Cole, but they didn't know about Don Cole... being in Parchman Prison simply for saying, "We want Black professors at the university." So for me, when I look at somebody in 1970 went to jail for saying "We want Black professors, and we want a Black studies program," okay, that motivates me now, as a Black professor, as a person who was chair of African American Studies, that I remember students fought and went to jail for me to have the right to sit where I am now. I think we've got to remember it as African Americans. I think that we have to remember all the integrated moments where people worked across race. We have to think about people like Duncan Gray. We have to think about people like I think it's Albin Krebs, who work with the newspaper, white male who was attacked. And remember, this is a long fight. It is a long fight. And we all have ownership in it. And we all have a hand in it and cannot stop leading and pushing, because where we are came about, because others were willing to fight us to be here today.

Chris McAlilly 32:55

I wonder how you think about your role? I mean, because one of the things that I hear in that speech is just you're very conscious of your place within history. And, you know, as you think about institutional leadership in an Honors College at a public university in a state like Mississippi, how do you think about for yourself, as you move beyond that speech and into a new year and kind of in this new role? You know, what are you afraid of and what are you hoping? What's what's the best thing that you think could come out of this opportunity that you have?

Ethel Young Scurlock 33:36

Okay, so I begin with, first of all, how I think about myself. I always think about, and I'm so thankful for all the opportunities that have opened for me. I always kind of settle myself in that moment by saying, for example, I was the first Black person to win the University Teaching Award. But I know I wasn't the first Black person to deserve it. But I'm thankful that I was the first. I was the first Black female appointed Dean on the Oxford campus. I wasn't the first Black female that could have done this job. So I take it as a privilege and an honor to stand in these roles, knowing that others could have done it and done it well. My hopes are, that people will engage me, see who I am culturally, see who I am in terms of gender. But don't... I don't want people to say, "I don't see color. I don't see a woman." I want you to see exactly who I am. I want to bring exactly who I am to the table, but I want it to have value. That is my hope, that I will be able to use my position as a Black woman to speak as a Black woman and also bring things that maybe you have not previously associated with Black womanhood into the room. So I want to always do that. I want to always make sure that when I come into the room, I'm bringing other people with me, that there's a hope, and that I'm allowed to operate as everybody else operates. I want to be able to operate as an administrator. I want to show up as the Dean. I want to show up and make intelligent decisions and be included in places I should be included. What are my fears? I'm probably not smart enough to have a lot of fears. That just, I'm not smart enough to be feared. And I probably should be scared sometimes. But I just kind of feel like, I've always felt like when I'm moving in these places that I'm placed, I feel like I'm placed here for a reason. Like, I don't feel like I'm sent to the table to decorate it. I don't feel like I'm sent to these meetings to be eye candy. I'm past that age. So I'm not scared. I feel like I'm there. I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to do. And I feel like I've lived long enough and well enough, where if something bad happens, I can recover. And I can go somewhere else. I don't really have any fears. And I know that sounds terrible, but I don't.

Chris McAlilly 35:56

I love it. I love it. Let me push it just one more dimension, just because you, you know, thinking through all the different dimensions of your vocation. You know, in some contexts, being a woman in the pulpit is not something that is seen or experienced. And so that's another space in which you're operating. And so I wonder kind of how you think about that. Because I've heard you preach multiple times and preach in your speeches. And you're good, man. You can bring...

Ethel Young Scurlock 36:33 Thank you.

Chris McAlilly 36:33

You bring the heat. And so I wonder how you think about embodying that role as a woman of God, who preaches the Word and brings kind of a spiritual power to the people that you're serving.

Ethel Young Scurlock 36:52

I was licensed to preach by Bishop Rudolph McKissick. He's in Jacksonville, Florida now. We were in Ohio at the time. And he told me at the very beginning that I was never to show up as a woman in ministry, just show up in ministry. And he said, "Never defend your right to preach, just preach." And I took that kind of assignment seriously. So I just show up. I preach. And I've never defended it. And so I just tried to show up and let the gift make room for itself. And it has done that historically, and taken me into rooms I never expected to be in so many churches. Everywhere I've lived and everywhere I've been, I've been the first woman, and I tried to behave in a way where I don't have to be the last, and in most places I have not been. And I do want to say to both of you all as United Methodist preachers, I'm so thankful for your tradition being so embracing people of different genders. And my first invitation outside of my home church in Ohi, was at a United Methodist Church. We almost shared a parking lot. It was a little fence in between our two parking lots. And my first invitation to preach outside of the Baptist tradition here, and maybe my first sermon... Maybe my first sermon when I got to Mississippi was at Burns United Methodist Church. I think was my very first. So you all have always been embracing. And I've just kind of said the gift to make room and to do what it is that it needs to do. One thing that I failed in, when you talk about... I always try to be self reflective. So we talked about guardrails. I think being self reflective is very important--that you always talk about what you do well and what you don't do well. One thing that I've realized over the last few months that I've not done enough job, I've not done a good enough job of being thoughtful about how I empower other women. So when I said when I think about Gloria Kellum, Gloria Kellum was always thoughtful about how she empowered other women. She was very deliberate about making sure that happened. I've not been deliberate. I've done it in ways that are haphazard. And so what I'm trying to do now, in my churches and here on campus, is create structures that empower and elevate women in a way where their voices can be heard and where they're in positions where they can make change and make differences. So that's one thing that I really have seen as a place where I needed growth, and I'm growing in that area now.

Eddie Rester 39:25

You know, you think about Gloria Kellum. If you're not familiar with the University of Mississippi and its history, Gloria Kellum is one of these earth movers, I mean, foundational pieces of the school over the... You know, what it is today in many, in many ways, a group. But I'm thankful to hear you say that. I'm thankful that she did that for you and that you're willing to do that for others, as a father of two daughters who are in the sciences. You know, one of the things that has been helpful for both of them is to have women ahead of them say, "This is the way you navigate the waters. This is the way you carry yourself. These are the dangers along the way." Because it is different in fields that are male, have been historically, male dominated, how to bring other women alongside.

Ethel Young Scurlock 39:53 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 40:21

I want to shift gears just a little bit and talk about students, the students you get to work with every day, that you teach, you watch, you coach, you encourage. A lot of people talk real bad about this younger generation. You know, they "Oh, they're just... I don't know if they're gonna ever amount to anything." And I know you see it differently.

Ethel Young Scurlock 40:43 I do.

Eddie Rester 40:43
What hope do you see? What encourages you about this group of students in the year 2023?

Ethel Young Scurlock 40:50

Wow. I think our students are innovative. They're smart. They're savvy. We're having to catch up with their savviness. I think they're energetic. They know how to access information. I really love working with students from different backgrounds. They bring so much energy and innovation to the table. You know, they're willing to dig in, try to figure out how to do things differently. They're willing to ask hard questions. They're willing to strike out on their own in many cases. I mean, we see conformity in some cases, but also we see students who are willing to take stands and make their voices public. And in some ways, we don't like it. But I kind of like the fact that they can create their own platforms and find ways to, when they have something to say that they think is important, they figure out how to get that message out into the world. And I don't know. I just am amazed by how smart and intelligent and creative so many of our students are, especially sitting in this position. I saw it before the Honors College, but sitting in this position, I really see it over and over again. I see students of privilege that come from privileged backgrounds that are trying to figure out, "How do I use this privilege to empower other people?" I see students who come from backgrounds where they were impoverished and didn't have access to much, trying to figure out "How do I gain access and bring other people with me?" They are... They blow my mind every day, every single day. I'm just amazed. And there is a great there's a sense of compassion. I mean, we talk about... I think some of the things that we say stereotypically about this generation are just not there. You know, they're more violent, but no, they're not. If you look at history, you know, we got a history of violence throughout. You know, it's global. It does, it transcends generations. They're loving and compassionate and looking for ways to help and engage and support and finding new ways to do it all of the time.

Chris McAlilly 43:09

I wonder on that note, you know, one of the things I've struggled with, wondered about through the years as a pastor of a church in a college town, we intersect with a lot of students and a lot that are going to go into a range of different sectors, that are really wrestling with their sense of calling, their sense of vocation, whether they think of that in a religious or a more secular sense. I wonder from your seat, I wonder what you think we could do as people of faith, faith communities, to nurture and nourish and encourage students to think about their work, whatever that's going to look like, as a vocation, as a calling. How would you answer that?

Ethel Young Scurlock 43:54

I think it's very difficult. And I think some of the difficulty is because of parents. I think parents are thinking of college education as a transactional moment, in many cases. That, "I need you to take a major that we can get out of in four years. And I need you to be able to make a lot of money." And so because parents have this transactional ideology, and they're talking to the parents all day, every day--you know, when I went to college, I'm old enough where we had phone booths in the lobby, and you had to go down to the phone booth to stand in line and talk to your mom and dad once to twice a week. These parents are watching the kids on Life360. They can see their movements, when they go to class, when they come back. I mean, everything is transactional. "You got to get out of there. You got to do this and take these extra classes, and you got to come out and then you gotta go get a job." And so when you start talking to them about following your passion, it's hard because the messaging is very different. I think what We can do is just continue to show them models of what it looks like to follow your passions. For example, I'm trying to see. I just had a newspaper that somebody brought me, where one of our professors in the Honors College, I had no idea he was a pastor. He was just in a newspaper. He's an art professor, and also a pastor, and he was just featured there. We've got to keep showing them models of people who are able to find lives that are profitable and following callings, people who are following callings, and find the ways to live and survive. We've got a model that, but it's hard. And I will say, as a parent, it's hard for me. You know, I have a daughter, who is really into, yeah, United Methodist camps, and she's struggling with her calling, but also wants to make money and what does it look like? And how do we integrate all of those things? So I tried to model it for her and trust God that his calling is gonna be louder than whatever the money is saying to her and what other people say.

Chris McAlilly 45:55
So what's your encouragement to parents, and then maybe what's your encouragement to students?

Ethel Young Scurlock 46:00
I would encourage parents to step back and let their students explore the same way we were able to explore, to allow them to hear voices other than our voices, to trust and believe that there's enough good in the world, that if we are quiet, goodness will be able to speak. And I know that's hard. Like for me, I have to tell myself as a parent, "Be quiet. Ethel, just be quiet. Let God do what God is gonna do and let other people speak." And so I encourage parents to try to step back if you can, and trust and believe that God is big enough and amazing enough to send the right people at the right time to get our students to where they need to be. As students, I would tell students slow down. Find some places that give you joy. Listen to your heart. Money is great--I will never preach and teach against money. It's great. But are there ways that you can slow down find that joy, that calling, and find ways to integrate it? It can be integrated in so many different ways. And to believe that if you follow the calling, all your needs are still going to be provided for even if you purely provide that calling. And I think we have to show them people who are vocational. Who is doing vocations that are not... What do I want to say? Well, you just don't make a lot of money. I can't find a better way to do it. But it's hard. I think about teaching as a profession, right. And we're bad We got to do better, you know, in terms of people who are policymakers, we've got to figure out how we better compensate teachers, because we shouldn't depend on people to teach and change the world based on a calling. And at some point, as we have resources as churches, we have to figure out people not doing this just as a calling? How do we make sure that people are able to be their best selves, because we support those who are called to do art, to ministry, to do all these different things that are not always seen as profitable?

Chris McAlilly 48:02
That's a great place to maybe land the plane. What do you think, Eddie?

Eddie Rester 48:05
I think so. Dr. Scurlock, thank you for your influence.

Ethel Young Scurlock 48:08 Thank you.

Eddie Rester 48:08

Thank you for your work in the ways that you've stepped into history. I appreciate that for a lot of reasons. It's been great, not just to talk with you today, but it's great to work with you with the Honors College and know the impact that you're having on my daughters and so many other students as well. So thank you for that.

Ethel Young Scurlock 48:27

Thank you and I'm so proud of your daughters. I think one of just recently won an award. Was she a Fulbright semifinalist?

Eddie Rester 48:33 Fulbright semifinalist. So yeah.

Ethel Young Scurlock 48:35
I thought so. Yes. I'm so proud of them. So I'm watching them, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 48:39
She takes after her mama. Yeah.

Ethel Young Scurlock 48:41 [LAUGHTER]

Chris McAlilly 48:41
She does. We're so grateful for Audra. She's just fantastic.

Eddie Rester 48:45 That's right.

Ethel Young Scurlock 48:48
Thank y'all so much. I feel so inadequate for this. So thank y'all for being here with me. I really appreciate it.

Eddie Rester 48:56 Thank you.

Ethel Young Scurlock 48:57
Y'all are amazing. I hope you all both know how much I admire you and the work you're doing

in your churches and also in the community. It is a blessing. Thank you all.

Eddie Rester 49:05

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Chris McAlilly 49:14

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO