Our Vision

• The Center’s vision draws its guiding inspiration from the varied and complex constellations of African/Black cultures, resources, and research, which have provided and continued to provide African/Black peoples with general designs for living and patterns for interpreting their reality. 

• Here at the CBCRR, our goal is to inspire our students to work to raise up our community through service, science, sacrifice, and inspiration. We hope that the Center creates an environment that nurtures your genius and inspires you to serve your community in ways that are bold, bodacious, and beautifully Black. 

• It is our hope that the distinctive aspects of our design—an open and organic intellectual environment, collaborative knowledge building, and scholarship in the interest of social justice—enables you to contribute your own special talents to the maintenance and elevation of the community. Unity without requiring uniformity is our mantra; Our motto is Love, Study, Struggle.

• Our space is designed to be think tanks that foster a free-flowing exchange of ideas, theories, and methods; to invite the best thinking and doing our people have engaged in over the millennia. It is our hope that you come to appreciate diverse points of view and to see the strengths of different perspectives in new ways. It is our hope that you will develop collaborations and begin exciting new work together. And along the way establish personal and professional relationships that will extend long beyond your college career.

Our Mission

• The mission of the Center for Black Cultures, Resources, and Research (CBCRR) is to provide a just, safe, vibrant, inclusive, culturally supportive, and socio-ecologically sustainable space – a home away from home – where Black students can thrive and reach for their highest potential. Our focus is on health, wellness, vitality, and academic success. 

• Our mission also involves a conscious and dedicated effort to advance several groups that have been historically overlooked: Black women, Black men, and Black queer family. A crucial component of our environment is simply time: time to reflect deeply on one’s work, time to think through new projects, and time to read in new areas. Projects originally planned for the year may get transformed by the think tank experience of the center. It is our desire that you use this time and freedom to connect with your intellectual passions, explore fields outside your own, collaborate with others, and forge new—and often more ambitious—life agendas for your future and that of our people.

Pillars of Success