African American Affairs aiming to unify students at MSU Legal, political strategy in letting FBI search Biden’s home

By ZEKE MILLER The Associated Press

President Joe Biden’s decision allowing the FBI to search his home in Delaware last week is laying him open to fresh negative attention and embarrassment following the earlier discoveries of classified documents at that home and a former office. But it’s a legal and political calculation that aides hope will pay off in the long run as he prepares to seek reelection.

The remarkable, nearly 13hour search by FBI agents of the sitting president’s Wilmington home is the latest political black eye for Biden, who promised to restore propriety to the office after the tumultuous tenure of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

By AMALIA SHARAF Staff Writer

On Jan. 19, there was a takeover at MavAve.

Students from African American Affairs, Asian American Affairs and American Indian Affairs took over the area and introduced themselves to new students, explaining their goals and sharing gifts with guests.

According to BalenciaSariah Crosby, Interim Director of African American Affairs, they are working closely with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

“We run parallel programs, sometimes even co-produced programs in advance for students along with Asian American Affairs and American Indian Affairs. So we are very close to the Multicultural Center upstairs,” said Crosby.

The organization’s tasks are to help and advise students who seek support in different aspects of their college experience.

“I support the organization er the hope that, in the future, there will be someone they can go to.

One of the main reasons why Shunkwiler wanted to grab Finstad’s attention was because Finstad comes from a rural southern Minnesota background and knows a crisis like this needs to be looked at and taken care of because of how serious it has become.

“You’ve all had to live through and go through unique time, my heart aches for so many people that have had that isolation and that unique moment in time in their life that and help students make some decisions, minor decisions. Any students who walk through my door or Multicultural Center at large will be serviced. That’s why we are here for the institution,” said Crosby. “We have all those different ports of connection so if we don’t know the answer we do our very best to give a student information that they need.”

Moreover, African American Affairs wants to create a safe space for not only specific populations within the university, but for every student at Minnesota State.

“We do try to do our very best to create programs within African American Affairs and the other areas, affinity groups if you will, that cater to our different specific populations but it’s open to everyone because we recognize that all of our allies don’t look like us,” said Crosby.

The goal of the recognized organization is to bring together the community of African American students and unify they lost due to COVID and so we have to heal from that and part of healing from that is probably have to do business not as usual anymore,” Finstad said.

In Shunkwiler’s presentation one of the alarming facts he spoke on was: “In Jackson County Minnesota, there were zero mental health providers,” according to Minnesota Department of Health workforce data.

Looking past just Jackson County, many mental health providers are going to be gone in five years causing a shortage.

“Things have to change a other groups by sharing their culture.

“I am doing my very best, along with some phenomenal graduates and one new undergraduate assistant to work to unify. And I say that not to try to create the impression that it’s not already unified, but you know how you’re making a quilt, right, metaphorically speaking? And you want to bring together these different patterns and things. I want to help to bring together the fabric of the black community at MSU,” said Crosby. “We want to share that in a way that will help to benefit and improve the culture of the college at large.” little bit, so I love the fact that you are willing to look at that from a different lens that to understand the uniqueness of rural versus metro setting access is always a big issue but even furthermore you know where to look at,” Finstad said.

Students who want to contribute and connect with African American Affairs can connect with them via social media or by attending one of several events this semester.

“Contribute in the sense of attending programs, supporting, and interacting with us on social media. There is always something going on,” Crosby said.

At the end of the meeting, Finstad spoke on how his generation and farmers have to be OK with being vulnerable, and that having a conversation about mental health allows the opportunity for connection with younger generations — especially those focused on college kids who’ve also had to go through COVID-19.

Editorials represent the opinions of The Reporter editorial board. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the college, university or student body.

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