On March 27, Envision Weekend leader applicants for the upcoming 2025 summer cycle received an email addressing the cancelation of the weekend-long orientation event. For the past two years, this program was held the weekend before Discover Week, providing a space for underrepresented minority students to get acquainted with each other. At a majority-white institution like Case Western Reserve University, these students may find themselves as the only people of their race/ethnic background in the incoming class.

The cancelation of Envision Weekend comes in the wake of the dissolution of the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Engagement. A quote from the former office read, “Our commitment to our community remains strong and we will continue to find ways to engage and support one another moving forward. As many changes continue to unfold around us, it is more important now than ever, that we remain united. Together, we will navigate challenges and emerge even stronger.”

CWRU’s 2024 fall undergraduate student body was composed of 0% American Indian/Alaska Native, 6% African American, 0% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 12% Latino and 5% multiracial students. This vast and diverse collection of racial and ethnic backgrounds adds up to a strikingly small 23% of the school’s undergraduate population. This number, as compared to the school’s white (34%) and Asian population (30%), displays a clear race‐ethnicity imbalance within the student body. Despite claiming a commitment to diversity, the school still has a long way to go in terms of promoting a more equitable racial distribution on campus. Envision Weekend was helping to foster an environment to achieve just that.

Last year’s Envision Weekend had a plethora of opportunities for students to get to know the campus in a smaller, more familiar community before stepping into the chaos of Discover Week. The schedule consisted of a family BBQ, where students could mingle with future peers and current students who could offer invaluable advice about navigating CWRU as an underrepresented minority student. The program provided the opportunity for honest and concentrated small group discussion, with student leaders being paired with students within their prospective field of study to create a hyper-individualized support system for incoming students. Specialized workshops and panels differing from Discover Week were also offered, such as Navigating A Predominantly White Institution: Young Alumni Panel, Health + Wellness as an Underrepresented Minority Student, Lunch with Mentor Groups and more academic-achievement focused sessions, such as those on research, campus and community engagement and an Office of Multicultural Affairs Tour & Discussion.

While Discover Week provides a whirlwind of information and a vast amount of opportunities for new connections, its groups are much larger, which often doesn’t enable the student mentors to connect as closely with the students they are welcoming in. At the end of the week, your mentor likely doesn’t even remember your name unless you intentionally tried to get to know them. This effort is hard to make since you are still trying to make friends with other students and attend workshops while going on numerous campus tours or exploring Cleveland.

Envision Weekend provided a great solution to this for underrepresented students, allowing for candid conversations about how race affects treatment in classrooms, what professors are likely to be strong allies and supporters, how to get a job, what cultural clubs are beneficial for community involvement and just generally providing a space to bond over cultural background in a community where it is sometimes difficult to do so. Many people who met during Envision Weekend have remained close friends and were looking forward to welcoming the new class, hoping to give new students the same warm, familiar welcome that they received.

One past student leader said, “It’s disheartening that Envision Weekend will not be happening this summer. I was looking forward to being a mentor again and meeting my new mentees. The loss of Envision Weekend will be felt by the incoming underrepresented minorities for years to come.” Another leader said that Envision Weekend was where she met most of the Black people she knows on campus. Meeting these people helped her create connections, network and feel like she had a community in a place where she often didn’t feel people of her race were well represented.

The decision to cancel the program comes at a contentious period in American politics, as our government continues to revoke rights, denying the existence of concepts such as systemic racism, white supremacy groups and rising racial hatred. It is not uncommon for the campus community to feel our hearts drop as new emails roll into our inboxes. Every day, it seems, we’re informed of more funding cuts and buzzwords that could upset our government and lead to our expulsion or abduction and more blatantly nationalistic agendas being pushed onto us, seeking the eradication of the cultures and differences that make us such a rich community. This is a time when, more than ever, a program such as Envision Weekend is needed.

So, what can we do to maintain a supportive community presence for underrepresented minorities in the upcoming years? Well, we should continue to find ways to share space and experiences. Those in the underrepresented minority community should keep seeking out people with similar backgrounds, especially since, proportionally, there are not many people who fit this description on campus. This doesn’t mean shutting out people who are not of the same background, but there is power in having a support system who knows some of the food, hair styling, cultural sayings and microaggressions you have been through. This community can provide confidence and assurance in a period that feels extremely uncertain and antagonistic. It is also crucial for everyone on campus to act as allies for each other. Whether that means inviting your friends to a cultural event or giving them a platform to speak in a club panel, we must make our diverse voices heard and continue to learn from each other.