The Howard Thurman Center announced last week that it will expand and relocate from the basement of the George Sherman Union to 808 Commonwealth Ave., a move that will bring its staff and programs to a more accessible location on campus.
The relocation is the last phase of a multi-year commitment by Boston University to improve the HTC, according to Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore. In addition to announcing the move, the center has hired four new staff members and increased its budget for programs and activities.
Elmore said the idea to expand the HTC grew from a conversation about the protests at the University of Missouri several years ago, and the presence of hurtful, vitriolic language on college campuses.
“Students said to us that the universities should play a more positive role in helping students to learn more about these things, but also to be able to talk to each other and communicate with each other,” Elmore said. “Students also said to us … the HTC plays a good role in fostering those ideas.”
Elmore added that the Howard Thurman Center will bring students together for important discussion and innovation regarding social issues.
“This is the place where people can come to really further those conversations,” Elmore said, “and not just conversations, but also action.”
Pedro Falci, the associate director of the HTC, who co-chaired the committee to plan the center’s expansion, said the new space will allow the HTC to expand its reach across campus.
“We’re going to be very visible so people will know where we are,” Falci said. “We have more institutional support than we’ve ever had, and that gives us the ability not just to increase the quality but [also] the quantity of our programs.”
Falci added that the new HTC will share the 808 building with the College of Fine Arts gallery already present there, and will benefit from its proximity to the nearly-complete Joan and Edgar Booth Theater.
Falci said he anticipates it to be a very artistic and happening block, and a home for culture among students.
A key element of the new HTC building, Falci said, will be a large event space, which will allow the center to put together programs quickly, since it will no longer need to search across campus for adequate facilities.
“This will be so helpful for us to be responsive to our community,” Falci said, “so we really are able to be a home for conversations on what’s happening in our world, and do so not a month down the road, but tomorrow, the day after, or the day of the event.”
Falci said the expanded HTC will have a conference room, three classrooms for humanities classes and a possible meditation space on the second floor of the building.
While it is too early to know the firm timeline and cost of the project, Falci said, Elmore and the HTC team will be fundraising for the new building. The team will attempt to rally support from alumni and those involved in nonprofits and philanthropy.
“This is an endeavor that we hope will touch people and that they want to be a part of,” Falci said. “We just want this to symbolically and physically be a community-wide thing where people give as little as a dollar, to perhaps millions of dollars, because they believe in the idea.”
BU President Robert Brown, who first introduced the initiative to expand the HTC, wrote in an email that the university hopes the new location will be more accessible to students.
“I think the role of the HTC is expanding,” Brown wrote, “and we are hoping that it will be more visible and engaging to all our students.”
Brown wrote that “because the building has historical significance, the outside of the building will look very similar when the renovation is complete.”
Several students expressed excitement about the expansion and relocation of the HTC.
Devin Harvin, an HTC Student Ambassador, said he thinks the expansion will be beneficial to the HTC’s mission.
“I think it’s going to be great and it’s going to completely transform the campus and continue to push the idea of common ground that Howard Thurman established at BU,” the College of Arts and Sciences junior said.
Seun Kuye, a senior in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said that while she thinks the new West Campus location is less convenient for her to get to, it will be an improvement over the smaller GSU basement space.
“Being in West Campus might be a little more difficult because the [current location] is more central, but I feel like the size might be a good thing,” Kuye said.
Justin Taylor, a freshman in the College of Engineering, said he thinks the new location will bring greater attention to the HTC.
“People who haven’t seen it before or heard about it will notice it, because on the streets they’ll pass by it almost every day,” Taylor said. “I think it’s going to bring a lot more people together.”
Shaun was the Editor-in-Chief for the Spring 2019 semester. Before that, he was the Multimedia Editor, the Layout Editor and a News writer. He also sat on the Board of Directors. Follow him on Twitter @shaun_robs.
