Multicultural Resource Center, spring 2020

MRC signature events and initiatives

During this quarter, the Multicultural Resource Center hosted a number of large scale events to serve the campus community. A few of the events included:

MLK Week/MLK Day of Service: The annual MLK Week was themed “Working Together to Raise Us All.” The week, sponsored by the Center for Civic Engagement; Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; the Hinman College Public Service Learning Community; the Student Association Vice President of Multicultural Affairs; and the Cultural Presidents Council, included the following events:

MLK Day of Service included volunteer projects at six sites:

• Senior Center of Western Broome County
• Johnson City Senior Center
• Good Shepherd Village at Endwell
• Tri Cities Opera
• The Discovery Center
• Family Planning of South Central New York

National Racial Day of Healing

Screening of the film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

You Can’t Heal What You Never Reveal: A Space for Racial Healing workshops for faculty/staff and students

Film screening and discussion of the film Life

Celebration of Life for Milton Chester: In honor of the late Milton Chester, assistant dean of students and director of Off-Campus Programs and Services, a committee of students, faculty, staff and administrators planned and held a memorial remembrance celebration Saturday, Feb. 8, in the Anderson Center’s Osterhout Concert Theater. While Binghamton’s weather was unpredictable and a snow storm impacted the area, a joyous program of performances and messages from students, staff, administrators, alumni and previous Binghamton University employees continued. The celebration also launched a Milton Chester Memorial Fund and donations in his honor to the new Men of Color Summit. Those impacted by Chester’s time at Binghamton University can continue to make donations via the Binghamton University Foundation at bit.ly/miltonfund. Donors are asked to type “Milton Chester Memorial” in the special instructions/comments box.

Lunar New Year Celebration: On Feb. 11, the MRC held its annual Lunar New Year Celebration at Appalachian Dining Hall in Mountainview College, in collaboration with Binghamton University Dining Services. The event was co-sponsored by the Student Association Vice President of Multicultural Affairs Council, the Dean of Students office, and the Confucius Institute of Chinese Opera. In addition, the event saw participation and tabling from other campus groups such as International Students and Scholar Services, the Office of International Education and Global Initiatives, Chinascope and Project Pengyou. The event was a great success and allowed students on campus to get acquainted with East Asian culture, traditions and cuisine. In addition to this event, the campus community held a number of Lunar New Year celebration events including:

• The Lunar Banquet held by the Chinese American Student Union and the Vietnamese Student Union on Feb. 14
• Dragon Night held by Chinascope and the MRC on March 1
• A Chinese Art Exhibit held by the Binghamton University Art Museum titled “Snowflakes Between Gauze: Rubbings from the Han Dynasty,” held from Jan. 24 to March 4.

Culture and Food Series: Culture at Chenango: With the continued success and effective partnership with Binghamton University Dining Services (BUDS), the MRC continued the Culture and Food Series for the campus community. The Middle Eastern Edition was held March 3. This event was a huge success and saw the largest number of sales, 313, in a single day at the Chenango Room for the spring to date!

Black History Month Celebration: In honor of the campus annual Black History Month Celebrations, the MRC collaborated with the Black Student Union to support a host of programs that included:

• Black History Month Keynote Reception Dinner featuring Cyntoia Brown: The Multicultural Resource Center sponsored a reception dinner for Brown prior to Black Student Union’s keynote speaker event on Feb. 21. The reception dinner was an opportunity for the Black Student Union E-Board to meet with Brown in preparation for the 6 p.m. event in Old Union Hall.

Inaugural Men of Color Summit: The Binghamton University Men of Color Summit Planning Committee, which is chaired by the Office of the Dean of Students and consists of representatives from the Student Association, Graduate Student Organization, Multicultural Resource Center, Educational Opportunity Program and other men of color student leaders, has been working together in preparation for Binghamton University’s inaugural Men of Color Summit. Originally scheduled to be held March 28, the summit has been postponed to September due to federal, state and University guidance in response to COVID-19. The event is designed to educate and empower students.

MRC Student Manager Programming Board and Birthday Celebration Events: In an effort to continue building cultural awareness on campus as well as to continue fostering awareness of the MRC and its services, the MRC continued our internal programming series planned by our Student Managers and professionals in the third quarter of the current academic year. Due to campus responses to the coronavirus during this quarter the MRC Student Managers hosted:

• Lunar New Year Celebration for Lunar New Year, screening of Love Jones for Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, Dancing with Uyai for Women’s History Month

MRC visits, resource requests, meditation and prayer room, Bartle tabling, room reservations and TIP

As a resource center, the MRC continues to expand on its offerings for the greater campus community.

• The MRC has become a place where students look to engage, study, host informal gatherings or even rest between classes. During this quarter, we saw 956 visitors.
• The MRC currently oversees and manages the tabling requests for the Bartle Library breezeway; the process for this has successfully been moved to Bthere and is self-service with reviews done by MRC staff. During this quarter, the MRC received and executed 106 tabling reservation requests.
• The MRC is revamping the Resource Room request form, which will be live at the beginning of the spring semester, making it easier for the campus community to utilize the MRC’s paid and unpaid resources for their events, course needs, etc. During this quarter, the MRC received and executed 56 resource requests.
• As space in the Union went offline this fall through early February for renovations, the MRC promoted and encouraged student organizations to utilize its meeting space for organization meetings and events. The MRC continued to see an increase in utilization of the space for reservations as well as general study space. During this quarter MRC received 65 room reservation requests.
• The MRC’s Translation and Interpretation Program (TIP) has served the campus community, and local school districts with four translation requests in Mandarin and Spanish this quarter. In addition, we are currently in the process of renewing translation contracts with five local school districts in the Binghamton area.

MRC grants and collaborations

During the first two quarters of the 2019-2020 academic year MRC provided 26 grant and collaboration requests, awarding 20 opportunities to cultural student organizations, campus departments and local community organizations for a total of $7,100. The MRC grant funding process has been revised. The new process began in January. Cultural organizations will now submit grant applications during the open application period that takes place during the semester prior to event execution. Since the application was revised during fall 2019, all grant applications for spring 2020 were submitted in January and awarded in early February.

Some of our signature collaborations and external event sponsorships for this quarter included:

• Multicultural Flip Fair: The Fleishman Center and the Multicultural Resource Center collaborated to host the first “Multicultural Flip Fair” Feb. 4. This program reversed the roles of the employers and students at typical job fairs and was designed for student organizations to have the opportunity to table for potential employers. This program was a great opportunity for multicultural organizations to network with professionals, spread their organization’s mission and create connections for the future.
• Fifth Annual NAACP Image Awards: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Binghamton University Chapter and MRC held the Fifth Annual Image Awards: Afrofuturism Saturday, Feb. 22. The event featured keynote talks from alumnus Daniel Adeyangu and Erica Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Camp, Inc., performances from students and cultural student organizations like Dzidefo African Choir, Quimbamba Latin Dance Team and X-FACT’R Step Team. During the event, a new Faculty of The Year Award was created in honor of Milton Chester and awarded to him posthumously, along with seven other awards categories:

1. Crisis Magazine
2. Outstanding Greek Organization
3. Humanitarian
4. Outstanding Organization
5. Most Dedicated NAACP Member
6. Entrepreneur of the Year
7. Gamechanger of the Year

• Dragon Night: The MRC collaborated with the student-run organization Chinascope on its annual Dragon Night banquet held Sunday, March 1. The event was an opportunity to showcase Asian student talent on campus.