RAPP: A Legacy of Linda Bates Parker

Linda Bates Parker, MA (A&S) ‘70 held a variety of important roles at the University of Cincinnati: she was the former director of the UC’s Career Development Center, the first Black woman to serve as Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs, and she served as a pioneer leader of diversity initiatives at UC, including RAPP. This reflection pays tribute to Linda for her dedication to RAPP and inclusion at UC.

On January 17, 1982, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at UC hosted an explicitly racist party that mocked civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On a poster that was created to promote the event, the fraternity encourage party attendees to wear explicitly racist costumes and to bring explicitly racist props with them to gain admittance to the party. More than 100 people showed up to the party, all of whom were white. After the party occurred, Cincinnati’s chapter of the NAACP called for UC to disband Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Following the event, the fraternity was suspended, and Henry Winkler, UC’s then-President, imposed a two-year suspension of the fraternity.

In 1985, UC’s student body president proposed ending funding to race-based student organizations, arguing that they replicated activities of pre-existing organizations. This led to significant campus tension especially from students of color, many of whom argued that their needs were not served by the existing, predominantly white student organizations.

In response to these incidents, RAPP was co-founded in 1986 by Linda to provide white students and students of color an opportunity to discuss timely racial justice issues together in a safe space. Since its inception, RAPP has evolved to address a broad spectrum of topics, including racial justice issues, LGBTQ issues, women’s issues, and more. Hundreds of students have participated in RAPP over the years, including current and former faculty and staff, as well as leaders and community advocates across the United States.

Dr. Ronald Jackson II was part of the third RAPP cohort and served as a RAPP facilitator during the fourth RAPP cohort. According to Dr. Jackson, Linda “found a way to cultivate community building in a safe, positive, productive, kind, loving, and fun environment. The memories and friendships from that group have been lifelong. She is partly responsible for me becoming an intercultural communication scholar who studies how people negotiate their identities. The seedling that germinated my career was planted in the RAPP program.”

In addition to helping to create RAPP, Linda mentored students through a UC student organization called Advance, she taught a class on managing diversity in the workplace for nearly 20 years, and was recognized as a Distinguished Teaching Fellow. Linda also establish the Linda Bates Parker scholarship to help African American students experiencing financial hardships to remain in college at UC.

Outside of UC, Linda helped to create Black Career Women, a national organization that supported the needs of women in the workforce, and she created the “Can We Talk?” National Diversity Forum, which addressed relationships among women in the workforce. Linda’s impact also had international reach; she helped to create Execucircle, an international conference held in Africa, the Caribbean and South America, which helped African Americans to create international professional connections, as well as cultural competency.