Making The Shield a Platform

I was standing in the Breezeway on a windy, fall day when a Black student walked up to me clutching a Shield print edition. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I’ve never seen a Black person on the cover of The Shield before. Thank you.” Her comment and emotion shook me and touched me to my core.

I walked into my office in University Center East and picked up a copy of the October 2021 print edition. It was both my first print with The Shield and my first print as Editor-in-Chief.

The cover was a collage of photos, and one of the photos was a group of Black students. I thought to myself, “We will publish a print edition celebrating the Black community of USI before I leave as Editor-in-Chief.”

Being intentional about inclusion has always been a core value of mine, so I assumed the act of providing equal opportunities for all students was the way things have always been done.

Over the last two years as Editor-in-Chief, my staff and I have made purposeful efforts to make The Shield representative of all student and campus community voices.

We dedicated the middle spread of The Shield’s February 2022 print edition, “Making History,” to Black history by honoring President Ronald Rochon as USI’s first Black president, but in May 2022, we decided to dedicate the entire February 2023 print edition to the Black community of USI.

February is National Black History Month. We believe this is the first print edition The Shield has ever entirely dedicated to USI’s Black community.

To make this print edition, we worked closely with the Multicultural Center, including the Black Student Union board reviewing this entire print edition prior to publishing. I had the opportunity to share meaningful conversations with Pamela Hopson, executive director of the Multicultural Center.

Hopson first began working for USI in 1979 as a clerical position for the Student Financial Aid Office. She watched USI become gradually more diverse as the university began expanding its recruitment efforts outside of the Southern tip of Indiana.

Hopson said as the campus became more diverse, “it was evident that someone recognized the need to have a center.”

“You have young, innocent minds trying to learn, trying to get ahead, and not everyone was not receptive to them as a student,” Hopson said. “They needed champions.”

Hopson had the opportunity to serve as chair of a task force investigating this issue and was asked to be the first executive director of the Multicultural Center in 1994.

The USI Multicultural Center started with a staff of one: Pamela Hopson.

“When I moved into the position, I had one piece of paper on my desk that had a mission statement,” Hopson said. The center was originally one office, Hopson’s office. It had no budget, no plan, no guidelines – it was just Hopson.

“New people to campus sometimes assume that it always existed, but it didn’t always exist,” Hopson said. “It took someone behind the scenes who recognized some of those gaps and was able to go out and lobby and fight and negotiate and collaborate.”

Over the last 29 years, the Multicultural Center has moved locations five times and has developed into a resource for students of color. The Multicultural Center Library hosts a diverse collection of over 800 books and journals about and from people of color that Hopson collected herself to fill a gap in materials in the David L. Rice Library.

The center sponsors student organizations such as the Black Student Union, the Hispanic Student Union, the South Asian Student Union and the Asian Student Union. It hosts annual events such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon as well as campus events throughout the year.

She said the center helps students of color feel comfortable being their authentic selves on campus, as students of color sometimes encounter unnecessary roadblocks.

“It isn’t as though they don’t have a voice because everyone has a voice, but sometimes, people may not have a platform,” Hopson said. “It takes those who are in power to create a platform so that members of this community feel as though they belong here, and they can feel comfortable expressing themselves.”

The Shield’s purpose is to be a platform for the voices of the USI community. “Celebrating Black Voices” is an intentional platform for the Black USI community to express themselves authentically.

I dedicate my letter to Pamela Hopson, the USI champion of diverse students. It is my hope “Celebrating Black Voices” is a step in the right direction of filling the gap in past Shield reporting on the Black community of USI.

“I love being African American, my skin is beautiful, and our people fought hard to give us the life we have today.”

Models: Bianca Anderson, freshman business administration major, Paris Downing, sophomore public relations and advertising major, Kenecia Hawley, senior food and nutrition major, Da’Jour Howard, junior psychology major, Sanaa Jackson, sophomore elementary and early childhood education major, Arionne Kelley, freshman marketing major, Joey Martin, freshman marketing major, Brandi Neal, director of Pathways to College, JaShuan Newman, sophomore business administration major, Kai-Lynn O’Bannon, senior health services major, and Lauren O’Neal, junior early childhood education major,