The University of New Haven builds community around the integration of diverse student minds in both social and academic settings. At the core of the initiative is the Myatt Center for Diversity and Inclusion, who celebrated their “birthday” on Nov. 14. To celebrate the center’s seven years of service on campus, the organization held a weeklong celebration.
Festivities started on Nov. 13 when the office took feedback from students to help build the future of the Myatt Center. The Myatt Center’s new director, Sam Ortiz, is thinking about ways to bridge gaps between the diversity office and the student body, especially people from underrepresented communities.
“I hope that we see a lot more engagement, a lot more collaboration; more communication and exchange,” Ortiz said.
During the birthday party, there was music and cake at the center.
“Generally, what you see [here today] in the Myatt Center – where there’s actually people coming through – there’s music, there’s food,” said Ortiz. “I’d like that to be a consistent thing for the Myatt Center where we’re a place where students want to go.”
Ortiz said he noticed that students do not recognize the center as a place to hang out, but rather as an office.
“Right now, we’re kind of like a stop if you need us or if you even know what we’re about because I think there may [still be] some gaps in what students know about the Myatt Center and what we do,” said Ortiz. “And we have this lounge space, and we have critical resources and support opportunities for students that I don’t think are fully utilized.”
This was a sentiment shared by Yousseff Ossama, a diversity peer educator (DPE) at the Myatt Center and the president of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and the Undergraduate Student Government Association’s vice president of community, advocacy and diversity. Abdelhamid said that the Myatt Center uses the space for their events, such as the ones being held for the birthday week and implemented passive programming such as a sensory toy station to get more people to come.
“That’s [the] kind of stuff that makes people feel more welcome to come in and just want to be at the Myatt Center,” Abdelhamid said.
Abdelhamid said he felt that it was “a safe haven for a lot of students.” He said the center was created both by students and for the students who felt mistreated due to their different backgrounds.
He said he is glad the Myatt Center is “a safe place for all students, no matter [of] anything, to come in here and just have fun, get some snacks, join fun events [and] learn something new” and that he found his campus family at the Myatt Center and it made him “more confident and more comfortable.”
“I got so involved to the point where like sophomore year, I was basically a DPE because of how much I was here, how much I was helping, how much I got help also from DPEs and the Myatt Center staff,” Abdelhamid said.
The Myatt Center’s positive impact is heavy on current students that go there along with new staff such as Ortiz.
“My passion for working with students from underrepresented backgrounds has really been at the forefront of my experience so far because the Myatt Center serves not just students of color, but LGBTQ plus students, students from diverse religious backgrounds, first-gen students – you know different, many different identities,” said Ortiz. “And so that has definitely allowed me to expand and stretch myself to try to make sure that we’re doing the best we can for these various student communities as well as for the student body as a whole.”
The Myatt Center is located on the bottom floor of Gerber Hall. You can also check out their events on their Charger Connection and their Instagram page, unewhaven_mcdi.