The Black Oasis for Learning and Development announced a change of name to the Black Student Research Network and a renewed focus on expanding its network of student researchers.
BSRN will replace BOLD and will build upon its original goal to foster academic research opportunities for students of African descent and to promote intellectual engagement with Afrocentric scholarship at the University, according to its mission statement.
The network will benefit from formal partnerships with the Undergraduate Research Network and the Black Student Alliance. In addition to holding its own distinct events, BSRN will co-sponsor programs with these two groups.
BOLD President and new BSRN President DeAnza Cook said the structure of the organization is more fluid and will allow it to better connect to University-wide programs.
“BSRN has over 50 subscribers now and is continuing to grow,” Cook said. “We just launched [Monday] so we are pretty excited to see that people are getting more involved.”
Cook, a third-year Batten student, said the network is the only black student organization on Grounds that focuses on research.
Before this revamp BOLD worked with the Undergraduate Research Network on events such as a research fair. URN Chair Usnish Majumdar, who has worked closely with Cook in the past, said most of the work done between the two organizations has been more a matter of having conversations than necessarily hosting events.
“In the realm of student groups that offer services to other students, to be the most efficient that we could be, we would have to find ways that we could avoid stepping on each others’ toes and help each other best,” the fourth-year College student said.
Because the Undergraduate Research Network does not collect racial or ethnic information about its members, it has no way of knowing just how effectively its programs have been reaching black students on Grounds.
“The role for BSRN is substantiated in the way they have chosen to focus on students that are traditionally underrepresented,” Majumdar said. “We are partnering and trying to offer the same thing, and BOLD is better connected to African American students, and better at doing outreach.”
BSRN is planning to work with URN for an upcoming Dorm Chats event, and will work with BSA on a series of talks between students and minority professors about what it is like to be a minority researcher at the University. The organization is also working on a networking event between black students, graduate students and University faculty to connect students to research opportunities in the spring.
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