The ground-breaking ceremony is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today, with interim MSU President Teresa Woodruff, Rema Vassar, chairwoman of the university’s Board of Trustees, and other school officials are expected to attend.
The board gave the university the green light to break ground on the $38 million, 34,000-square-foot facility on the corner of North Shaw and Farm lanes in February.
“I want to thank the trustees for supporting this important part of MSU’s history,” says Woodruff. “Students have been calling for a free-standing multicultural center on campus for decades. To be able to deliver on that call only furthers our commitment to welcoming and supporting our increasingly diverse student population.”
For Brianna Scott, a school trustee, the construction of the new center is personal. She, along with former trustee Joel Ferguson and current trustee Kelly Tebay worked over the last four years to get the project off the ground.
“Seeing the wheels of this project being set into motion is invigorating,” says Scott, who previously served as chair of the Student Life and Culture committee during the project’s development. “It is also incredibly humbling to be able to be a part of a solution so many Spartans long before me have called for. Your calls have not gone unheard. I look forward to embracing this new transformational space where all of us can come together as one.”
The university’s first multicultural center opened in 1999, but student leaders consistently advocated for more space and a center that was free-standing. In 2013, MSU administration agreed to move the center to a more prominent location. While that move did create more space, students continued to advocate for a stand-alone building.
In the 2018-19 academic year, Sarah McConville, a student and chief diversity and inclusion officer for the MSU Residence Halls Association at the time, started a petition for a multicultural building on campus.
As a result, Tammi Cervantes, the former president of Culturas de las Razas Unidas, (CRU), a student organization that advocates for the Latino community at MSU, helped form the Students for a Multicultural Building organization, which helped drum up support for the center.
In 2019, several student organizations, including the Black Students’ Alliance, the Council of Racial and Ethnic Students (CORES), and the Council of Progressive Students Coalition (COPS), presented a plan to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus that included a free-standing multicultural center.
In response, President Emeritus Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr., appointed a steering committee in late 2019 to conduct a feasibility study of constructing the center. In 2021, under Gore’s leadership, the feasibility report’s results were approved by the board to begin the planning phase, marking the first tangible steps toward construction. The SmithGroup, an integrated design firm in Detroit, was chosen by MSU to complete the project.
Building features will include a living room, a community kitchen, office space for CORES and COPS, an art gallery wall, a resource center, and other amenities. The stand-alone building is designed to provide a culturally rich and welcoming environment that promotes intellectual curiosity among students and their peers to learn and share experiences with one another.
Those shared experiences will be further amplified through several unique features of the center and its property, including the Dreamer Center and outdoor amphitheater.
The goal of the Dreamer Center is to help undocumented students succeed academically and professionally; despite the challenges they may face due to their immigration status. The Dreamer Center will provide a safe and welcoming space where those of mixed-immigration status can connect with peers and receive support, mental health resources, financial aid, and legal guidance in a private environment.
In addition to creating an inviting space indoors, the same intentionality is meant extend to the center’s outdoor spaces, including the amphitheater facing the Red Cedar River. There, students will be able to enjoy performances of music, dance, theater, and other forms of cultural expression. In addition, an Indigenous-inspired ceremonial firepit featuring natural elements will expand opportunities for all student groups.
The MSU Multicultural Center is expected to be completed by the fall semester of 2024.
