{"id":14542,"date":"2022-01-27T13:48:10","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T18:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=14542"},"modified":"2022-01-28T11:36:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T16:36:17","slug":"huddle-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/huddle-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Huddle Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In fall 2020, following a summer in which demonstrations for racial justice took place across the country, a group of Black student-athletes and administrators created a new student group at Monmouth, the Black Student Athlete Huddle (BSAH).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a very intense summer when it comes to questioning racial injustice in the U.S.,\u201d says Prisca Blamon, a fifth-year student and thrower on the women\u2019s track and field team who serves as co-president of BSAH. \u201cAnd we felt it was imperative for us to have a safe space for Black student-athletes to be able to talk about how we\u2019re feeling, being that we go to a predominantly white institution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the group has held biweekly meetings that serve as an open forum in which Black student-athletes from any team can talk with their peers about the stressors that are affecting them, be it \u201cracial injustice, time management, institutional changes, etc.,\u201d says Blamon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing able to take time out to decompress and talk about life in general\u2014I feel like not only can it make your day better; it can make your week turn around,\u201d says Blamon. \u201cIt makes me feel like others are going through the same things that I\u2019m going through, and we can get through it together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelsey Ellis, the compliance and academic coordinator in the Athletics Department, serves as a co-advisor for BSAH. She says the events of summer 2020 made it clear that \u201cBlack student-athletes needed a space where they could feel comfortable and have an opportunity to express themselves and not feel \u2026 undermined by the other populations that are on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want everybody to understand our point of view \u2026 and experiences,\u201d says Ellis. \u201cThe goal, ultimately, is to find a way to merge our experiences and understand what everyone else\u2019s are so that we can focus on the bigger picture and create peace and respect on both spectrums.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re people who realize that there are issues in society, and we want to be a part of the solutions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To that end, BSAH is undertaking several initiatives to foster dialogue on diversity and inclusion across campus. Last fall, with help from the athletics communication staff, the group recorded sound bites of student-athletes discussing their personal definitions of social justice, which were shared on social media. They also filmed a series of vignettes in which Black student-athletes shared personal stories about their lived experiences and plan to show the videos on the Jumbotron at upcoming athletics events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group is also looking to partner with local K\u201312 schools to facilitate discussions on diversity and inclusion with the younger generation, says Blamon. BSAH received funding through a Monmouth University Diversity Innovation Grant<\/a> to help with those efforts, says Blamon, and both she and Ellis credit University administrators and the Board of Trustees with being incredibly supportive of the group\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blamon, who also serves as the social justice chair for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference\u2019s Student Athlete Advisory Committee, is excited about the impact these outreach initiatives can make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are some people out there who believe that we\u2019re just athletes,\u201d says Blamon. \u201cWe want them to see that we are more than that. We\u2019re people who realize that there are issues in society, and we want to be a part of the solutions. If we can just touch one soul with that message, it can set off a firework.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new group of Black student-athletes is working to foster meaningful dialogue on diversity and inclusion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":14765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Athletics","issue":"Fall\/Winter 2021","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14542"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14551,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14542\/revisions\/14551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}