Cultural Competence and Community Engagement in George Washington Carver’s Era

While I was researching this man George Washington Carver certain things popped out in his life that I also had to go through in my life. Missouri State University three public affair missions is ethical leadership, cultural competence and community engagement. In one lifetime George was able to display cultural competence in early childhood life by trying to attend schools. While Mr.Carver was a teacher at Tuskegee University he showed how his abilities as an ethical leader. Mr. Carver showed community engagement by doing different things to make the world around him a better place.

Mr. Carver had to travel far to go to a school that was made for black kids and that allowed him to get his education. This blends with me because I traveled all the way to Springfield because I wanted to obtain an education that would better me and be able to reach me to higher levels. The only difference between me and George was that he was denied getting into a college because the color of his skin. George toured the country in his later days towards the end of his life he tried to speak on the importance of racial equality. He had to go and attend to a homestead because he couldn’t get into college and since he wasn’t accepted into the school it showed that back then they didn’t have a wide vision on one of our public affair missions which is cultural competence.

Now when people speak about ethical leadership I hope that a face that pops up is Mr. Carver. He is a perfect example when you think of someone that could make a perfect leader and he is someone that I hope to become like in the future. When he arrived at the scene of Tuskegee he changed it immediately. Within the one year that he was there he was earning awards for his department which was Agriculture. He made groundbreaking discoveries with many basic ingredients making people want to do the same things with different things which made people follow him in trying to make revolutions in the agriculture department.

In a short lifetime George made a reputation and used it to help others around him. He has a scholarship in his name helped contributed to improved quality of life for many families and made Carver an icon for blacks. Another way that George used his fame for the community was to promote scientific causes to help advance everywhere around the world. Another way that he helped the community was that he established the George Washington Carver foundation that would help secure the future of Agriculture. These are the ways that he displayed community engagement, but on a wider scale than most.

These are just snippets of the way that George Carver has shown his way into being a legendary example of Missouri State's public affairs mission. He lived through a time when there wasn’t a single person around him that was culturally competent. Another reason was by becoming an ethical leader that would want to be someone that you follow. The last reason was by being an involved person in the community. These are the ways that he demonstrated the public affair statement of Missouri State.