She said the now-monthly meetings are gatherings that provide a time for collaboration amongst black student organizations.

On Wednesday evening at the Multicultural Center in the Union, about 25 students representing various organizations gathered to brainstorm original, “innovative” initiatives for students on campus to promote inclusion and diversity.

Some of the organizations represented included the BSA, the MSU chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, The Advantage and MSU Dream Team, among others. During the meeting, students conversed about potential initiatives, such as student mentorship, support groups and celebrations.

“We want people to be able to cross through organizations,” Moore said. “So (at Harambee), we are asking people to get in groups not with people in your same organization … to kind of come up with some ideas that we can (all) do together.”

At the meeting, Moore presented the BSA’s >56 initiative, an action plan to attain higher graduation rates.

According to Moore, the graduation rate of black students at MSU after six years is 56 percent, whereas the rate of the overall population is about 75 percent.

Moore said the goal of this initiative is to strengthen this rate and provide things such as academic and financial assistance and a support system to provide students the avenues necessary to graduate.

“If you look at the trajectory of how things have been going, we might be graduating, but we’re graduating a lot slower than the (overall population),” Moore said, adding the rates increase in the number of years a student attends college. Instead of six years at 76 percent, it takes about 10 years for black students to reach the same percentile, she said.

Chemical engineering sophomore Alex Redmond said he attended Harambee on behalf of the NAACP chapter at MSU