Cainan Townsend is a changer, a leader, a Lancer and a Farmville citizen. At first, just another face in the crowd, he is an example not only of what it means to be a citizen leader, but what it means to be a citizen innovator.
Townsend is a sophomore and a liberal studies elementary education major. He was born and raised in Farmville, Va. and described first attending Longwood University as “kind of a culture shock.” Having attended a high school with a student population that was 80 percent African- American, Townsend described Longwood as “quite the opposite.”
He admitted, “It kind of took me a few weeks to adjust,” further stating, “It’s completely different.” “When I go to Walmart or some stores and local places, I can see plenty of people from the town, and you know they’re from the town, and you can distinctly tell who is a Longwood student and who is not,” he said. With words like “isolated,” Townsend described
Longwood as “its own community.” According to Townsend, what has caused the gap has been contributed to by the Massive Resistance policy from 1956 to 1960, where integration was protested by closing down public schools in Virginia.
“It’s going to take time [to bridge the gap] because when schools shut down, Longwood, being an institution pretty much centrally located in Farmville, it didn’t do anything ... and when you have a center of higher education, it’s supposed to take a stance on education, and it just kind of let the schools shut down,” he said.
Townsend commented that this caused the value of education to plummet and cause a huge generation gap that has continued to affect the town of Farmville.
As a member of the town of Farmville with a family who experienced the history, he commented that two of his great aunts as well as his great grandfather served as plaintiffs on the Brown v. Board of Education case, a case where 75 percent of the plaintiffs came from Farmville, Va. Townsend’s father was affected as a member of the Lock Out Generation and was unable to return to school until around the age of 13. By then, his father had to start at the first grade.
Describing his father, Townsend said, “He pushed me even harder to do academics and schoolwork, especially in mathematics.”
He described his experience when he was younger when during the summers, rather than going out and playing, his father would have him practice multiplication and division and later quiz him.
“He knew I had to have what he couldn’t have,” said Townsend.
He also described his mother as being the biggest influence on his life, saying she helped him learn how to diversify himself.
“I never wanted to fit a stereotype or stigma,” said Townsend, “I will always be trying to fight stereotypes or stigmas. So, I’m one of the most diverse people, and I try to be partially because of my mom.”
Townsend further stated, “The stigma at our school is – okay, the black guy is going to do this, do this, do this, listen to rap music exclusively, do drugs,trytobeinagang–andthenifIwasto care about school, and do my homework and not do that stuff, I’m being ‘white.’ So, I don’t want to fit stigmas, so I try to be as diverse as possible.”
Defining what diversity means to him, Townsend said, “Diversity is having the courage to be yourself, which has taken me a long time to come to, but once you do, it’s amazing – like not caring
what other people are going to think, what you do, not letting others influence your decisions, just being yourself regardless of any situation.”
Townsend commented that his personal goal is to be able to educate the campus student body and the adjoining Farmville community where there is a lapse in communication and a lapse in relationship between the two communities. With the hopes to mend the two relationships, he acts as a tutor and mentor by working with children in the Prince Edward Public School System as well as working with the Moton School Civil Rights Learning Center, previously known as the Robert Russa Moton Museum.
With the dream to become a superintendent in Prince Edward County, Townsend is currently working toward becoming a teacher after gaining a Master’s degree and PhD in Education and Administration, respectively. Afterwards, he hopes to teach for a few years in multiple areas “to diversify my experiences in teaching,” and then a principal, then a member of the school board and finally a college professor.
The organizations that have contributed the most to Townsend’s character and success have included Phi Mu Delta fraternity and the Call Me MISTER program, a national teacher leadership program.
Describing Call Me MISTER as his biggest influence, Townsend said he first entered the program during his sophomore year of high school.
After attending the annual leadership academy organized by the program one summer, he said, “It broke me out of my shell real quickly and taught me about diversity, taught me about stigmas, stereotypes, how to break them, how to ignore them, importance of reading. It taught me so much.”
He said, “It encompassed my whole personality.” Being a brother of Phi Mu Delta, Townsend said the organization has influenced him in that it “gave me my guiding light.” Believing in democracy, service and brotherhood, while also expanding on diversity, he commented that it aligned directly to his views of being open- minded.
Townsend continues to influence the campus and the community by acting as president of Great Role Models Who Open Windows to Higher Education (GROWTHE), a campus organization designed to bridge the gap between Prince Edward County and Longwood University by specializing in community service.
While admitting that he does not expect complete change and improvement on the relationship between the campus and the community, Townsend said, “My goal is to help the youth and bring back the value to higher education.”
Townsend described himself as “a changer.” “I’m trying to make things better for everybody.
I’m trying to embrace diversity, and I’m trying to preach open-mindedness,” he said. He further stated that he hopes he will be able to have everyone be able to accept each other and for Longwood students to understand the history and impact Prince Edward County has had on the entire United States.
A changer, a leader, a Lancer and a Farmville citizen, Cainan Townsend is a student with both a history and a future for success. Expect great things.
