Woke in the WELS: MLC, again...

Professor Nichole LaGrow is Director of Non-Traditional Education and Professor of Education at Martin Luther College. Prior to joining MLC she was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. She recently gave a presentation at the 2024 Peralta Online Equity Conference, entitled When Equity is Fundamental: Building a Program with Equity at its Center. This presentation was heralded by InFocus magazine on page 33, much like Prof. Schwartz' presentation on antiracism and BLM.

Let's dig in, shall we?

We get off on the wrong foot in the introduction, when Professor LaGrow shares her preferred pronouns and her intersectionalities (2m56s). 

The use of preferred pronouns is an affront to our God. When Jesus was asked about divorce in Mark chapter 10, He did not appeal to the law of Moses, or the institution of marriage, but rather to the creation account in Genesis chapter 1: "male and female, He created them". The fundamental principle behind marriage is rightly ordered genders, defined by the act of creation. Furthermore, Paul tells us that the image of marriage rooted in male and female is really an image of Christ and His bride, the church. Any allowance of the disordering of genders - whether it be allowing for more than two or allowing someone to select a gender other than the one they were created as - by definition opposes the creation account and defiles the image of Christ and the Church.

"The training for diversity, equity and inclusion that is available for instructors is a year-long program offered through our Cultural Engagement Center. And so, faculty engage with staff as well as administrators in that. It's a year-long cohort capped at ... 12 participants year. This year there's about eight in in the program. Participation is voluntary, not required and so there's not really institutional guidance or institutional requirement that faculty would engage in that, but I will say that administrators are very supportive of it and have engaged with it themselves and often encourage individuals to engage in it what they can." (15m4s)

If you take nothing else away from this post, take away the fact that MLC's Cultural Engagement Center is a front for implementing DEI at MLC. Apparently with the support of the administration. Gradually, then suddenly.

"Different images and representation has become a challenge because there are no learners in our program yet to include their authentic voices. And we have to acknowledge that some course content does privilege a white midwestern conservative Christian lived experience, as part of our identity, as part of our heritage, as an institution and as a religious body. We are working quite adamantly in addressing some of those privileged experiences or those privileged perspectives" (24m24s)

Authentic voices, naturally, is code for 'non-white'.

Read carefully: she describes privilege both "as an institution" and "as a religious body" and that they are working "quite adamantly" in addressing that. Focus on the latter - what issues in our religious body are being addressed by Dr. LaGrow's and the faculty?

"But it's not something that comes naturally for all people within or all of our faculty and staff. And to think about the impact or the repercussions of what they might say or something that might be problematic or discomfortable or perceived as a microaggression by someone may not even have crossed that person's mind as being that, because they really don't have that lens to think about it. It sounds like I'm making excuses or justifications for those individuals, I'm not, but it is something that's a learning experience for them to think about how what they are saying might be perceived by somebody who really doesn't have the same with experience they do." (25m0s)

The problem with microaggressions is that the victim's perception is considered absolutely authoritative. there is no - dare I say it - equity - for the party deemed to be causing the offense. The lens she refers to is a woke one as she looks down on these poor 'white midwestern conservative Christians' that lack the gnosis she has, ultimately throwing her coworkers under the bus.

This isn't the first time we've noted faculty at MLC pitting themselves against the 'institution': two weeks back we looked at the signals the Cultural Engagement Center is sending and noted the lede:

"The Cultural Engagement Center is a welcoming space for our diverse students where they feel seen, heard, and valued."

If the Cultural Engagement Center is a safe space, it follows the rest of the college is not. 

"This is where we are more intentionally and directly challenging some of the concepts that are most problematic in my mind for us as an institution" (32m30s)

Again, what elements of MLC are problematic? 

"Connection and Belonging: this is one area where I find significant challenge for our students because we are a PWI and for our on campus students that is wonderful and some ways and horrible in others but for our online students, they do not necessarily connect with our demographic in the same way. Our online students at least in our program tend to be more students of color than our students in our on-campus programing so that's a challenge because a lot of the imagery they see of our campus if you go to our web page or if you view any of our videos from any of our events we'll see that our students are primarily white and our online students are not primarily (white) and so that creates a dichotomy of well how do I fit in how do I belong and in this, I'm not even there I'm not even on that campus and here I am not even represented in their student body..." (34m40s)

PWI stands for "primarily white institution" reflecting those gosh-darn white midwestern conservative Christians that occupy our campus. I'm curious what she considers horrible about being a PWI for our on-campus students?

...

This comes on the heels of the WELS statement on Critical Theory. Does our shiny new statement have any teeth to help in a situation such as this? Dr. LaGrow is not playing around. She knows exactly what she is doing. This isn't the first time Prof LaGrow has presented on these topics. During her previous tenure at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, she moderated a poster panel for the 2022 Peralta Online Equity Conference. Around the 15 minute mark she discusses DEI, Social Justice, uses PWI and laments that the "state is potentially legislating against CRT, so we have challenges" because she finds CRT to be a useful tool in the classroom. Around the 21 minute mark she talks about "monthly inclusive (faculty) reads ... focusing on how DEI influences teaching."

A perusal of her LinkedIn profile shows more woke credentials, along with six graduate degrees.

...

Dr. LaGrow's body of work is easy to find in a quick Google search. The troubling question becomes why was she hired at MLC? It is unlikely they failed to do a cursory check of her CV and online presence. It seems that her woke credentials were not a concern in the minds of the faculty that interviewed and ultimately hired her. 

The woke barbarians are not at the gate: they have infiltrated MLC. In the normal course of events, every called worker in our synod filters through MLC. If you capture a generation and indoctrinate them with this garbage, then our Synod, there but by the grace of God...

Looks like the WELS needs to update their FAQ on CRT at MLC ...