SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) — It’s Homecoming Week at Syracuse University, a week that some students of color at Syracuse University haven’t always felt connected to.
Cameron Gray, a senior at SU, said she didn’t even realize when Homecoming was her freshman year.
“One day I asked my friends ‘when is Homecoming?’ and they told me it was last week,” she said. “I didn’t even know what was happening during the week or go to the game.”
This year, however, things will be different for people of color at Syracuse Univesity, looking to celebrate Homecoming with events during HBCuse.
HBCuse is a week of events put on by 119 Euclid, a new house on campus with the goal to create a space that students can call home. The building opened in September 2021 during Coming Back Together, an alumni event for people of color who are Syracuse University alumni. The building has a kitchen, living room with a flat-screen TV, and themed rooms that can be used for conference meetings and studying.
An executive director within the Office of Diversity and Inclusion on Syracuse University’s campus, Eboni Joy Britt, says the play on the name was their way of paying homage to homecomings at Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the nation.
” HBCU’s have such an unbelievable impact on Homecoming across this nation,” Britt said. “How could we do a homecoming event without giving credence to HBCU’s?”
Homecoming on campuses like Howard University, Hampton University, and Clark Atlanta University create experiences that black people can only get while attending an HBCU. But, 119 Euclid wants to create that kind of atmosphere for the students here at a predominately white institution.
As Gray states, a place to bring black culture back to campus.
“The initiative of 119 Euclid is doing to bring those events back in the context of homecoming, is so important because we’re remembering the legacy and then hopefully HBCuse is something that can happen all year,” she said.
Although Homecoming is helping to bring more people to 119 Euclid this week, the impact this house has on campus goes beyond Homecoming Week.
“When we first opened during the first week, I cannot tell you how many students came in here and cried, tears in their eyes,” Britt said. “I can’t tell you how many graduates and alumni were saying they wished there was something like this for them when they went to school here.”
Students like Gray and SU alumni hope that HBCuse can be something that takes place every year, thanks to 119 Euclid.
