Contact the Student Activities Office to RSVP
A key event to celebrate Black History Month will be the first-ever Black Excellence Gala, presented by the Black Student Union at Schoolcraft College.
This formal event will include hors d’oeuvres and a strolling-style buffet. It will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 23, in the Wilson Room in the Waterman Wing of the VisTaTech Center. Please RSVP by contacting the Student Activities Office at 734-462-4422
This inaugural event will be a celebration of Black Excellence that lifts the voices of past and present African Americans that highlight the very definition of perseverance, fortitude and the grit that it takes to reside in skin filled with melanin. BSU will showcase Black art, poetry, music, achievements and every other aspect of the Black experience that has helped to shape and mold the world in which we live.
Catreese Qualls, Schoolcraft College student and Division III International Vice President of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, sees the Gala as an important event for the College.
“Over the pandemic, we recognized that the Black voices were being drowned out by the chaos and confusion of the Black Lives Matter Movement,” she said. “As student leaders and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Change Agents, DeSean Knight (President of the Black Student Union) and myself decided to draw from these experiences and take what we’d gleaned from the aftermath of the marches and rallies.
“We decided that in order to paint a different picture, one that revisits the great works of peaceful Civil Rights leaders, that we ourselves would manifest those same inward thoughts and begin to outwardly manifest positivity by creating a space where civility would be a the root of every conversation, and hope would rest as the bridge to carry our mission of replacing fear and ignorance with acceptance and knowledge.
“It’s our hope that on this night, that through our spoken words and the culture of inclusion we have created on our campus, that we will have done what the iconic Civil Rights leader John Lewis compels us through his words and works to do: ‘We must get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble in order to redeem the soul of America.’”
The Gala also will serve to honor the work of student leaders and administrators over the past three years that has led to hiring Christopher Hunter as Director of Equity and Engagement.
“Over the unprecedented time of the COVID and race pandemics, we remained in the trenches advocating for access to the necessary resources that our most underrepresented student populations needed in order to maintain enrollment,” Qualls said. “Furthermore, we sought to help bridge the gap in the barriers that continue to keep us all divided. We achieved this through presentations, workshops and movie nights supported by our SAO Director Todd Stowell and Dean of Student Resources Dr. Marty Heator. So on this night, we will lift the names of Schoolcraft students and administrators who help us to keep the torch of equality through inclusivity a flame and moving forward.”
The Gala will be preceded by a Town Hall presented by the Black Student Union: “Lifting Black Voices.” This program runs from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Room 440 of the VisTaTech Center. Learn more about the event.