BU’s Minority Connection Initiative promotes diversity, safe spaces on campus

Amid the influx of students returning to campus this past fall semester, Kevin Smith, a senior Boston University’s College of Engineering, noticed something amiss — five male students of color did not return to BU after their freshman year.

Curious, Smith delved into self-motivated research to discover what caused the exodus of his fellow Terriers. After some inquiries, Smith said, he found that students didn’t return due to a “lack of support” within the community.

Smith decided to address the problem head on and formed the Minority Connection Initiative. On Thursday, his vision came to fruition during the group’s inaugural meeting, where Smith and his executive board invited students to join the community for minority advancement and connection.

At the meeting, members kept the room abuzz with tales of woes and triumphs in small group conversations. In order to create a community feel, the executive board members made sure each attendee had their own moment in the meeting to not only introduce themselves, but also share their personal experiences.

In order to foster community within this minority population, Kenny Harvey, a MCI executive board member and first-year graduate student at BU, reflected on MCI’s main goal: to give members friends and familiar faces on campus.

“That is the best way to keep a student at a school, it is to make them feel like they have a home there,” Harvey said during the meeting.

But instead of restricting membership to only undergraduate students, Harvey explained what makes MCI unique to the BU population.

“We’re also trying to bring in graduate students such as myself and faculty into this community,” Harvey said.

By including a faculty presence, he said the group also hopes to address diversity issues within the faculty at BU.

A 2012 BU report acknowledged the lack of faculty diversity by disclosing that “Boston University has an extremely low percentage of African American/Black faculty (~2%), and Hispanic/Latino faculty (~3%) relative to peer institutions.”

MCI seeks to create a mutually beneficial environment, where students and faculty can look to each other for support, Harvey said.

Smith shared the importance of faculty involvement through his own experiences.

“They believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” he said. “That right there was one of the reasons why I could tangibly see the wealth and value of having faculty and staff within my network.”

Aside from providing emotional support, Harvey explained how faculty interaction could aid academic and professional progress.

“They’ve kind of gone through the undergrad and the graduate [levels] and they have a lot of interesting information to share with us,” he said. “There’s a lot we students can do for faculty, specifically the minority faculty here at BU,” he added later.

He continued by providing examples, such as encouraging other students to take the faculty members’ classes or giving professors a chance to gain insight straight from their students. The relationship is essentially codependent, he said.

After attending the first meeting, Matthew Boykin, a freshman in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, revealed his insights and motivations behind joining MCI.

“Relationships, in general, are good,” Boykin said. “It’s good to have someone on the other side to guide you through. It’s not always going to be easy, as a student, to see where you need to go,” Boykin said.

The MCI places a central focus on community and togetherness, which is a fundamental goal of the organization.

“In essence, by supporting us, people are supporting the community because every engagement that we have is about supporting some aspect of the community,” Smith said. “By investing resources into us, we are connecting the community.”