Amari House: For KVCR, our news, I'm Amari House, and today I'm joined with
Dr. Jamal J Maywrick: Dr Jamal J Mywrick, the director of African Student Programs here at the University of California Riverside.
Amari House: And today we are going to be talking about cultural spaces. So Dr J, tell me, what are the benefits of having cultural centers on college campuses?
Dr. Jamal J Maywrick: Thank you for that question. I think three things as to why. So with cultural centers you have a place where you can be seen, you have a place that you can be heard, and you can have a place where you can create a sense of belonging or sense of community. So for many folks from a lot of different underrepresented communities, it can be almost a daily thing. You can walk on a campus like UC Riverside and not see somebody who looks like you or someone or see someone who can affirm you, and that's really critical when we're thinking of places and spaces on college campuses to keep underrepresented communities on the respective campus.
Amari House: Thank you for educating us on cultural spaces. So what inspired you to become the fifth director for ASP?
Dr. Jamal J Maywrick: Yeah, so I've been on campus since 2014 and one of my reasons for coming to UC Riverside was strictly because of the students. I always gravitated towards supporting our black scholars, whether it's in Path, or black organizations, I see the value in our scholars, and I felt that I could take African Student Programs to the next level, in the work that we were doing, and really kind of showcase my leadership skills for the betterment of our community here on the campus as well as in The Inland Empire. And so through that interim year, I never felt more happy to come to work. I never felt more excited to be around my scholars. I never felt more at home, if you will, here on the campus, than when I started in African student programs. And I still feel the same way. I love coming to work. I love getting to connect with scholars like Amari, I love getting to just kick it and learn. So for me, serving as the fifth director in the history of African student programs, it fit like a hand in the glove.
Amari House: So I've noticed a large part of your decision to become the fifth director at ASP has to do with upholding and uplifting our African American scholars on campus. So currently, as Director, how does ASP strive to uphold and provide a safe community for our African American scholars? Are there any particular programs that you'd like to highlight?
Dr. Jamal J Maywrick: Yeah, so we do it in a couple of different ways. The kind of framework that we use is, you get here, you keep you here and graduate from here. So I'll break it down real quick. Once you get here, we have a couple of programs dedicated to you know, your transition into the university. So that would be our eight week Summer Bridge Program, which is a 8 week experience that we do in partnership with the Academic Resource Center, where we're teaching incoming first year scholars, about UC Riverside, how to navigate campus. Also, we're teaching them about leadership development. We're teaching them about black identity development. What does it mean to be black? And we have our barbershop conversation, so that's our black male orientation. We have our tea talk, which is our black women's conversation/orientation. And then one of our kind of big, big, big programs, which is by far one of my favorite events, is our Black Grad Ceremony. And so that's kind of the culminating experience that we have at the end of the academic year that we've been doing since June of 1998 and so for that particular program, that is the experience for many of our black scholars, where they're bringing the whole city out. We have music, we have games, and we're having a good time celebrating their accomplishment for graduating from the University of California, Riverside.
Amari House: But other than the black graduation, how can a community get involved to ensure ASP success here on campus?
Dr. Jamal J Maywrick: Well, I think there's a couple of different ways. So if you see, if you see something and you want to get engaged, just go ahead and jump on in. Because again, there's somebody here in the community that's willing to support and engage you. So I think about someone like you, who you are actually a part of the Sankofa Mentoring Program and how influential that's been for your particular experience to the point now where you're actually a tutor here in this space, I think you would be a really great example of what community members can do to get tapped in the African student program.
Amari House: So looking forward to the future, how does ASP look to improve its outreach and effect on campus.
Dr. Jamal J Maywrick: First, I would say, is making sure that we have relationships with the campus, as well as folks in the Inland Empire. So it's not uncommon to see myself out in the community, because that's what we're supposed to do. We partner a lot with the local high school. Schools, the middle schools, as well as the elementary schools, to do tours of campus and create a culturally relevant tour of campus that they may not necessarily get if they didn't come through our office testing is again doing this work in collaboration with you all as scholars, we support a lot of our black student organizations, whether that's VSU, African Americans United in science, the black Greek letter, fraternities and sororities like to make sure that folks are taken care of in the community.
Amari House: I'm Amari House with KVCR news 91.9, thank you for tuning in.
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Amari House is a freshman at UCR, and a first time reporter with KVCR, who has a passion for reporting on issues that affect the I.E community, more specifically his fellow students at the University of California, Riverside. He is very passionate about uplifting and promoting the inclusion of minority stories in the mainstream media.