From Lagos to the Lecture Hall: Carrying Ancestral Knowledge into the Future of Higher Education
Dr. Kai Dupe • November 8, 2025
As educators of color, we often walk into institutions carrying histories that are invisible to the systems we move through.
last week, I had the privilege of presenting at the
Faculty and Staff of Students of Color Conference
in Vancouver, Washington. The theme of my session, From Lagos to the Lecture Hall: Carrying Ancestral Knowledge into the Future of Higher Education,
is one that continues to live inside of me even after the conference ended. I spoke about my recent journey to Lagos, Nigeria—an experience that was much more than travel. It was a return. A listening. A remembering.
Standing in Lagos, I felt the ground beneath my feet differently. The air, the rhythm of the city, the way the people moved with purpose and ease—everything reminded me that before we were faculty, before we were employees, before we were measured by productivity or credentials, we were rooted in something far older. We come from people who innovated, created, organized, resisted, and built community long before higher education existed. Our ancestors understood knowledge not just as information, but as relationship—to land, to family, to spirit, and to purpose.
As educators of color, we often walk into institutions carrying histories that are invisible to the systems we move through. Yet those histories shape how we teach, how we lead, and how we show up for students. In Lagos, I was reminded that our work is not only intellectual—it is ancestral. It is guided by voices and lessons that did not need to be written down to be real.
At the conference, I encountered colleagues who deeply understood this. We shared stories of resilience, joy, fatigue, hope, and the ongoing journey of making space for authenticity in environments that sometimes struggle to hold it. There was laughter. There were nods of recognition. There was restoration.
What I brought back with me—and what I offered in my presentation—is this: We do not walk into the classroom alone. Our ancestors walk with us. Their creativity is in our problem-solving. Their courage is in our leadership. Their love is in our mentoring. When we remember this, we teach differently. We lead differently. We live differently.
As I return to my lecture halls, I am carrying Lagos with me—not as a place I visited, but as a home I remembered. And I am committed to ensuring my students remember too.
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Stepping onto the campus of Morehouse College this past weekend for Admitted Students Day was more than a visit—it was a moment of reflection. As I watched young Black men walk with purpose across the yard, I found myself asking a simple but profound question: What would it have been like for me to study computer science here? My journey into computing was shaped in environments where I was often the only Black man in the room. That reality brings with it an unspoken weight—the need to prove you belong, the awareness of being watched, and sometimes, the quiet isolation that comes with underrepresentation. Standing at Morehouse, I realized that this burden is not a given. It is a condition of the environment. At Morehouse, the environment is different by design. Here, Black men are not anomalies—they are the standard. I imagined what it would feel like to learn algorithms, data structures, and software development in a space where my identity was not questioned but affirmed. Where excellence is expected, not in spite of who you are, but because of it. As a computer science professor, I understand the academic rigor required to succeed in this field. There is no shortcut through recursion, no bypass around debugging, no substitute for disciplined problem-solving. But what struck me during my visit is how much context matters. When students are free from the psychological burden of proving they belong, they can redirect that energy toward mastering the material. They can collaborate more openly, ask questions more freely, and take intellectual risks without fear. I also thought about legacy. At Morehouse, students walk the same grounds as Martin Luther King Jr.. That kind of history does something to a person. It raises the bar—not just academically, but personally. It invites students to see their education not just as a pathway to a career, but as preparation for impact. Leaving campus, I felt inspired—but also reflective. I cannot rewrite my journey, but I can appreciate what spaces like Morehouse offer the next generation. For a Black male pursuing computer science, it is more than a degree. It is an opportunity to develop skill, confidence, and identity in alignment. And that combination is powerful.