Center for Multicultural Initiatives: Being More Than Statistics
- Claudia Marques Molina
- Apr 13, 2020
- 3 min read
The Center for Multicultural Initiatives may be a student office for Oakland University students, but its outreach stretches far beyond that. CMI’s projects revolve around the words Retention, Diversity, and Resource Connections by offering programs, support services, scholarships, and events for its students throughout the year.
Mission
As stated on their website, the Center for Multicultural Initiatives “was established in 1993 “to advance Oakland University’s commitment to diversity in increasing the retention and graduation of a culturally diverse student body by developing strategies that engage all students in the attainment of academic excellence and social success.”
Photo: CORE students participate in an immersive week in the Summer Bridge Program/ Rachel Jackson’s photo
They offer mentorship programs, support services, and scholarships to assist with underrepresented students' success.
And by supporting events like the Hispanic Heritage Month and the African American Celebration Month, they promote education on diversity and inclusion of minorities.
“Overall, CMI wants to provide support to everyone but they intentionally seek out the population of students that are often ‘statistics,’” according to Rachel Jackson, CORE ambassador for CMI.
Programs
Collectively Oakland Retains Everyone (CORE) is a freshman academic program that focuses on first-year students’ needs through advising, tutoring, mentoring, counseling, and more.
Students who have passed through CORE have higher GPA averages than those of the same demographics that haven’t.
Photo: Students at CORE week/ Rachel Jackson’s photo
“My experience as a first-year CORE student is what inspired me to want to become a CORE Ambassador. My mentor provided me with so much more support than I could’ve imagined, and I wanted to do the same thing for someone else,” said Rachel Jackson, a now sophomore student in Higher Education Administration.
Photo: Rachel Jackson in the cover photo of the Student Leader Recruitment page/ Oakland University
As for the importance of a good mentor-mentee relationship, Rachel’s goals for the future are a perfect example of an everlasting mark. She wants to work with student affairs and diversity at the university that, to her own words, gave her so much. And her dream job?
“To be like my boss, Omar Brown-El, the senior director of the CMI office,” she answers.
Oakland University Trustee Academic Success (OUTAS) is another successful mentorship-based retention program that has won state awards such as the MACRAO Equal Education Opportunity Award and the Michigan Counseling Association Diversity Award.
To retain scholarship recipients and participants of CMI’s other programs, the Peer Mentor Program assigns mentors with whom students meet weekly for at least their first two years at the university to monitor their academic and social progress.
Its differential from other student retention programs is that OUTAS provides scholarships and support to adjusting to campus life to students from diverse backgrounds who experienced academic success in high school, not solely non-regularly admitted or at-risk students.
And the results are visible:
Source: CMI at a glance/ Oakland University
How to Join
For OUTAS and CORE, CMI contacts eligible participants automatically upon admission to Oakland University, as it happened to Rachel in her first year. The same goes for its merit-based scholarships.
However, the role of Peer Mentor is open to all full-time sophomores that have a certain level of GPA and meet the requirements listed on the tab “Peer Mentors.”
The roles of CORE ambassadors are also open to all OU students with work-study approval and a required GPA level. Instructions available on the tab “Core Ambassadors.”
“As a young black student, I understand the additional challenges we face as we pursue higher education. What’s so important about the CMI office is how they understand these issues and are actively trying to help underrepresented students become more than a statistic,” said Rachel. “Their mission is important because they are fighting the odds and sparking a chain reaction of more equal and fair representation for everyone.”
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