In previous articles, I talked about how St. Lawrence goes out there to make an inclusive, welcoming community for the faculty members, attending students, and any potential ones that come to visit. One way they do this, especially for the BI-POC students from urban, inner-cities, is by having them attend the College of Diversity (COD), where they get paired with current POC students from freshmen to seniors.  

The Office of Admissions invites students of various diverse backgrounds to campus during an exciting time of year. Specifically, Assistant Director Mary Sherwin, Associate Director and New York City Regional Recruiter Braulio Acuria, and Assistant Director Florence Hines, are the three main organizers of the admissions office working to bring students up safely and pair them with students that can give them insight on being a POC at a PWI. They also organize a celebration for the seniors about to graduate.

For the admitted students, they are finalizing their college decision and their senior year of high school is ending. For our seniors at SLU, it is an exciting time, as we celebrate our Presidential Diversity Scholars and our scholars in the Higher Education Opportunity Program. Many of the admitted students that attended our overnight program identify with one of these two groups. Our overnight program and senior ceremony fall on the same night on purpose. Our seniors may have attended the event in their college process and are able to reflect on their time, sharing words of wisdom with our future Laurentians during the ceremony. Our admitted students were able to see roughly 30 of our truly inspiring seniors accomplish one of the last traditions they will experience at St. Lawrence, and they now have role models to look up to as they begin their own journeys.  

Personally, I was able to have a heavy influence in making my decision to come here because of my COD experience. April 2019 helped gear me toward deciding to come to SLU for the last four years. I got to make friends with numerous HEOP seniors graduating with me this year on that trip for sure; primarily Marteas Johnson, James Anthony, and Trent Adamson. So, due to the sense of community, belonging, and identity this program provides, it does a huge thing for bringing diversity to this campus and creating a legacy for those same students before they even start their first class.