On Friday March 16, Director of Multicultural Recruitment and Mentoring, Frann Mawusi, hosted a Multicultural Overnight in which prospective students of color spent the night on campus and attended several events throughout the course of the night.
After arriving to campus, students were able to have dinner with MAAC (Multicultural Awareness Advisory Committee) and Wilson Goode Scholars Director, Theresa Noye, as they engaged in fellowship and got to know one another. Following dinner there was the Leadership Presentation in which the theme for the night, Trauma-Informed, began to unfold.
Worship leader, El-Fatih Chase, lead the crowd of prospective students in praise and worship as fellow Eastern students Olivia Smith, Aliia Matthews and Kristen Bradley sung along with him. Following worship, first-year student Jabre Harris prayed over everyone in the room. Professor Randolph Walters unpacked the theme for the night through a presentation on how trauma affects how we come to perceive the world as well as the significant impact it has on the brain.
In his line of work, which is counseling, those who have had traumatic experiences, he takes notice of their body language. He informed the crowd of prospective students on how when a person has experienced trauma they tend to disassociate. He said that traumatized people are often times replaying the event or events constantly in their minds and they become stuck. It is because of this that he is intentional about getting people to talk what they went through out loud so that they can heal and continue to move forward.
Following the powerful presentation was a panel discussion on student leadership in which the prospectives got to hear from current students at Eastern on the positions they hold. The panelists all shared how they got their leadership positions and talked about their journeys of faith in God, among other things. The night was a great success.