For Members Only Coordinator Michael Collins wants the black community to feel like more than a miscellany of undergraduates, faculty, staff and alumni: He wants it to feel like a family.
So in the spirit of family bonding, Northwestern’s Black Student Alliance sponsored the fifth annual Black Family Reunion, a barbecue and meet-and-greet session open to the NU black community Sunday afternoon. About 150 students played games, ate and listened to a disc jockey in Annenberg Hall after the threat of rain drove them inside.
According to Collins, the event’s popularity is largely due to the air of familiarity and companionship that fills the room.
“Its success is the fact that it is very reminiscent of the family reunions most black students on campus have been to,” the Weinberg junior added. “It brings an element of home life to school.”
As the programming chairman for FMO, Julian Hill worked most of the summer planning the event. He organized tug-of-war and musical chairs games as competitions among the classes. He also changed some traditional features of the event, such as moving it from its usual location at Foster-Walker Complex to the Lakefill. But the Weinberg sophomore said he wanted to maintain the reunion’s laid-back atmosphere.
“I wanted to keep it informal so alumni, graduates and faculty can mingle and network,” Hill said.
The reunion follows the Black Student Experience, an event held last week that introduces new students to groups on campus affiliated with FMO. The organization places the two events close to each other to deliberately speed up the process of acclimating freshmen to the campus and black community, which is about 5.6 percent of the student body, Collins said.
“We want to get them introduced in the beginning so they can be involved in the middle of the year,” he added.
Upperclassmen Marissa Jackson and Tiffane Cochran used the gathering to recruit members for their campus extracurriculars. The Weinberg seniors are the presidents of the Northwestern Community Ensemble, a gospel choir, and the CaribNation, NU’s Caribbean student group.
“This is an opportunity to get freshmen involved and start integrating them,” Cochran said.
According to Hill, another one of the reunion’s – and FMO’s – main goals this year is encouraging communication between graduate and undergraduate black students. Hill said he contacted the Black Graduate Student Association over the summer to plan events that would foster such relationships. He said black graduate students and alumni donated funds for the picnic.
The Black Graduate Student Association also sponsors a fall barbecue. The timing between the graduate and undergraduate barbecues contributes to the sense of connection between the students on campus.
The increased interest by graduate students in undergraduate education is the result of FMO reaching out to them and their loyalty to the black community, Collins said.
The number of programs available to new students, many affiliated with FMO, make freshmen feel welcome and valued, Medill freshman Chardae Davis said. The academic aid opportunities, such as the African American Student Affairs mentoring program, also link new students to a community of resources.
Events like the Black Family Reunion provide a sense of togetherness, one of the most important aspects of the black community at NU, Collins said.
“There’s a reassurance that (the community) is there,” he added. “No matter what, we still have each other.”
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