Major: Communications
Year: Senior
Instagram: thatguybrob
Brandon always had one goal in mind, to be successful. Since the start of his life here at UWF, he always made sure he found every way to stay involved and make an impact on not only the school, but also his peers. He served in many organizations such as the Campus Activity Board, African American Student Association Eboard, Student Government Association, Homecoming Eboard, and also served as the president for his fraternity Beta Beta Phi chapter of Phi Beta Sigma.
Known around campus for his vibrant personality and outgoing disposition, no one is ever surprised to see Brandon doing big things. Brandon wanted to see the black community around UWF become more involved with each other, so he took it upon himself to create the Black Student Union here on campus.
The BSU is a council of student organizations here on campus that range from African American Student Association, Caribbean Student Association, Haitian Student Organization, National Pan-Hellenic Council and Honors Council.
“One of the reasons I wanted to create BSU is because I felt like I wanted the black population at UWF to become more unified and support each other through collaboration. I felt like this council will help us to stop fighting against each other to get the attention of the same pool of people,” Brandon stated.
In the past, there were cases were these organizations would have multiple events on campus at the same time, fighting for attention, when in reality, they all had the same audience. Brandon wanted to stop this by creating a way they could all coordinate upcoming events so they could all of the organizations would benefit.
“I also believe this organization is very important because we have a lot of different issues that happen in our society, and I feel like it’s up to us to stand with those individuals of the black community and the Black Lives Matter movement and bring awareness to those issues here on campus,” Brandon said.
Brandon says his inspiration for BSU was the students on campus.
“It was a need that I had, and I had a platform and decided to use it. I have one more semester here to really help create a change, and I just want to see all my black brothers and sisters thrive, but also I want it to come together with all races and become a diverse community all around,” Brandon said.
Another purpose of BSU is to help teach other cultures and students about the black community around campus and also for them to learn about everyone else’s culture, which all interconnect.
This semester, the goal of the BSU is to help create structure and foundation. Next year at this time, Brandon hopes for it to be up and running fully on campus. Currently, Brandon serves as the interim director, so when he graduates someone can replace him with an election held during spring semester.
Brandon hopes they can get some steady groundwork on how they plan for the council to work. Some things they plan to have are a forum with their administrative team as well as a fundraiser for Louisiana, to collect goods and supply to help the victims of Baton Rouge during the recent flooding that occurred.
“We have a lot of different things that we just want to help out and bring awareness to, just so in the end we can unify as one as people.”
Five years from now, Brandon hopes that BSU will be running smoothly at UWF and helping the university represent the black culture. The vision for BSU is to become the go-to organization to help encourage and inspire other students to take stands for what they believe in.
“Change is very important with the BSU. I want to be able to set this tone and record for all students here at UWF to do something like we did, which is take a stand.”
Brandon wants everyone to know that if you see him around campus, don’t hesitate to introduce yourself and ask him any questions you may have about the BSU.