Although community service was a pivotal element of King's philosophy, few colleges and universities have emphasized service in their annual observance of the King holiday, according to Cliff Cockerham, director of Alumni University at Emory and co-chair of the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission's College and University Involvement Committee (CUIC), which held its first national summit at Emory earlier this month. More than 60 representatives from colleges and universities from across the country attended the event.
Serving as CUIC co-chair with Cockerham is Archie Ervin, assistant to the vice chancellor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ervin said the summit's primary goals were to identify individuals on campuses in each geographic region of the nation who can develop a national network of campus community members to join CUIC's efforts in helping campuses emphasize community service in their King holiday events; and to assess campus interest nationwide in such a collaborative effort.
"I think the prospects are excellent for increasing the emphasis of the service component of King holiday observances across the nation," Ervin said after the summit. "Many campuses already have some aspect of service in their observances."
Ervin said the impetus for asking campuses to focus more on community service came from President Clinton and the Congress in the form of last year's National Public Service Act, which extends the life of the Federal Holiday Commission until 1999. Ervin said that as part of that reauthorization legislation, both Clinton and the Congress expressed the desire that campuses emphasize King's legacy of public service in their holiday celebrations. The CUIC summit at Emory was the first step in building a national network of campus representatives who can turn those desires into reality.
Cockerham, who also gave a presentation on "Developing Diverse Approaches to Community Service" at the summit, recalled the importance King himself placed on community members helping each other to thrive. "Martin Luther King Jr.'s life was given to service," he said. "We need to remember him by rebuilding hope in our communities. We can't afford to think of the King holiday as just another day off. It must be a day on, a day on point, on topic, on target."
During last January's King holiday observance, Cockerham was one of several Emory community members who played a major role in organizing the King National Holiday community service project, which brought about 30 Emory students, staff and alumni to Atlanta's Summerhill neighborhood where they helped refurbish an old warehouse used by several non-profit community groups.
Cynthia Shaw, director of student development in Campus Life and chair of Emory's King Week Committee for the past five years, said service projects such as the one in Summerhill are now a permanent component of Emory's King Week activities. "We have attempted to include community service projects in our King Week celebration for several years," Shaw said. "I am very pleased that the Federal Holiday Commission has decided to stress that theme. It adds a lot of meaning to campus celebrations of Dr. King's life and legacy."
King's widow, Coretta Scott King, delivered the summit's keynote address and attended several of the discussion sessions. "The whole area of community service is what we needed to have connected with the annual celebration," she said. "Martin Luther King's struggle was a spiritual, moral struggle. His was an example of moral leadership. He believed that we had to be connected to each other and responsible to each other. I hope that as we celebrate the King birthday each year and study his life throughout the year, that we begin to commit to the philosophy of community service that undergirded him."
--Dan Treadaway