The Multicultural Student Services Center welcomes Jean Nsabumuremyi as its new director. PHOTO CREDIT: James Singer
As he settles into his new position as the director of the Multicultural Student Service Center (MSSC), Jean Nsabumuremyi is ready to create a safe space for students at the University of Rhode Island.
“I’ve always considered [Rhode Island] to be my home because I grew up a refugee, and being a refugee in different countries, I never had a home,” he said.
Born in Rwanda, Nsabumuremyi was forced to leave Rwanda at a young age due to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. After a childhood of bouncing around from country to country in Africa. Nsabumuremyi and his family finally settled in Providence, Rhode Island where he graduated from high school.
Here, he earned his associate’s degree in business at the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI). After his time at CCRI, he attended Cornell University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in developmental sociology and later a master’s degree in public administration.
Soon after finishing his degree, Nsabumuremyi returned to Providence where he worked as an adjunct professor at the CCRI. He later moved to Idaho where he was the director of the TRIO program at Idaho State University, a program to benefit underprivileged students. Through the TRIO program, he worked with students from low-income communities and multicultural backgrounds.
“It’s my passion to help students,” Nsabumuremyi said. “I know that URI has a mission to attract people of diverse backgrounds.”
One of his primary goals for the MSSC right now is to “find people who have not been acknowledged on this campus.” According to him, sometimes when we talk about diversity and inclusion we forget specific groups that also require a safe space. Nsabumuremyi hopes to find and include all of these groups in the MSSC.
He also wants to include multicultural student organizations in the process of growing the Center. He said that if student leaders work alongside the Center’s leadership and community, all pirates can continue to grow as students and adults.
Nsabumuremyi also hopes to use the Center to facilitate conversations between international and domestic students about the differences in their backgrounds and cultures.
“My goal is to create a center where everyone can find a space and place for conversation, where no matter how different you are, you can come to URI and call it home,” he said.
He looks forward to engaging professors and other faculty members in conversation about the MSSC’s initiatives and getting them involved.
Assistant Director of the MSSC Robert Britto-Oliveria said that while he only met Nsabumuremyi last week, he is greatly looking forward to working with him.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to what the Center is supposed to do, which is being student-focused, being student-centered and living up to the mission that was created by way of the Black Student Leadership Group in [1992],” Britto-Olivera said.
According to him, the Center was created as a safe space for students of color as they navigated attending a predominantly white institution. This mission has persisted to this day.
Nsabumuremyi said that so far all of the community members he has met so far at URI and his experience working with his peers have been entirely positive.
“So far I’ve felt welcomed on this campus and I feel like the mission of this university to bring everyone from different places together is actually there,” he said.