Radhika Sen, MSU StratCom student, recently received a Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant from the Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion worth $5,000.
Sen said she was looking for a way to help pilot an idea, Imagine MSU, and the grant was the perfect avenue to do that.
She also said the timing couldn’t have been better.
“I had just been selected as a Leadership Development Fellow at the Graduate School, which comes with the chance to implement a change-oriented project during your fellowship,” she said. “I had wanted to do something that cultivates both creativity and sense of belonging on campus and that’s how the idea arose.
“It aligned well with MSU’s new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Strategic Plans so it felt like a good fit from the outset and eventually worked out!”
Imagine MSU is a graduate fellowship meant to financially help students who are looking for ways to bolster a “sense of belonging and community on campus,” Sen said.
“My understanding is that the lack of a strong sense of belonging is relevant because it is often the subtext to many problems in higher education, especially in relation to building a genuinely thriving, diverse, inclusive, and equitable university community,” Sen said. “This is the crux of the project.”
Sen, who works in the fundraising department of the Graduate School, says she sees Imagine MSU leaving a lasting impact.
“I want graduate students to feel empowered to enact their best ideas; and to invest in serious work that uses a shared language and shared values to nudge forward and expand the boundaries of how MSU sees itself and fosters cultural engagement and community.
To learn more about Imagine MSU and to apply, visit grad.msu.edu/imagine-msu.
By Jennifer Trenkamp