Third-year College student Attiya Latif has been appointed to serve as the student director of the Multicultural Student Center for the 2017-18 academic year.
A Jefferson Scholar majoring in Political and Social Thought, Latif has experience advocating for minority students on Grounds. This year she served as chair for the Minority Rights Coalition, a group seeking to foster a culture of diversity and inclusivity throughout the University.
“I have always been deeply passionate about advocating for minority students on Grounds, and I am excited to be able to build off of my previous leadership experiences and serve the community in a new way,” Latif said in an email to The Cavalier Daily Tuesday. “My main goal is to center the MSC as a hub for collaboration, alliances, resources and student life. I am also looking forward to building communication between students groups and administrators on issues that minority students face and serving as an advocate on these issues.”
Centrally located on the lower level of Newcomb Hall, the University’s Multicultural Student Center opened in fall 2016. The center was designed to be a collaborative environment for the University community.
Jack Chellman, a third-year College student, has worked with Latif in the past on the Minority Rights Coalition as the representative for the Queer Student Union. He said Latif has shown her dedication to advocacy at the University.
“Advocacy work, at U.Va. and in general, requires the sacrifice of time,” Chellman said. “Attiya, more than anyone else I have worked with, is willing to make those sacrifices — to make sure that things run smoothly and commit as much time as necessary to ensure that the projects she works on and the advocacy work that she does, is successful.”
Catalina Pinto, the inaugural student director of the center and a fourth-year College student, was appointed to the position last semester by Vicki Gist, the director of Multicultural Student Services and an assistant dean of students. Pinto has also worked with Latif in the past on various multicultural and minority organizations.
“The job involves overseeing our intern staff that does our programming, presenting on behalf of the MSC at panels and meetings, representing the MSC to the press — things like that,” Pinto said. “It’s a big, big job.”
Pinto said one of the strengths Latif brings to the job is her understanding of how the University community operates.
“She has a very keen understanding of the University and how it works as a system,” Pinto said. “She has an extensive student network of people who work on a variety of different topics, [and] she’s very organized and practical when it comes to the internal operations of organizations, among many other things.”
Latif said she plans to use her position as student director to get the MSC more involved on Grounds and collaborate with other student groups.
“I am invested in spending the coming year helping to shape the center's definition, actions and purpose,” Latif said. “This past year has been incredible in terms of the work that was done to get the center off the ground, and to keep that momentum going, we will be focusing on branding, affirming communications with minority communities, creating workshops, emphasizing multicultural training and planning networking meet-and-greets, open mics and other events that promote expression, interaction between identities and community.”
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