February is a month to celebrate! It’s Black History Month, Heart Awareness Month, and Random Act of Kindness Week month.

This month at Siena Heights University, there will be many events for students, staff and faculty to get engaged and partake in learning more about the culture and history of African Americans.

Director of Diversity and Inclusion Sharese Mathis explained the importance of this month: “Black history is everybody’s history. Sometimes people just don’t teach you stuff,” she said.

This month serves as a way for students to understand that, according to Mathis, Black History Month goes deeper than Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. The Black History Month Committee has been planning for this month since the fall. The best part? She said it’s primarily planned by students.

“Honestly, the majority of the stuff is student driven,” said Mathis. For example, there is a display in the library that the same student has set up for the past two years.

Mathis listed a few events she is excited about: the Gospel Concert on Feb. 4, the second annual Love Fest sponsored by the Sisterhood of Saints on Feb. 10 and the trip to the Charles Wright Museum on Feb. 12.

Mathis is working with the Southfield satellite campus for the museum trip, so Adrian students and those at the off-campus site can come together for this event.

Every Wednesday during the month of February, Chartwells has agreed to serve cultural desserts: banana pudding, peach cobbler and sweet potato pie.

“My focus, in general, is quality over quantity,” said Mathis.

She said there will be new facts every day in the Daily Announcements, so be on the lookout for those, and the poster advertising the events for this month.

If any student would like to join the planning or has any suggestions for next year, contact Mathis.

“All of my programming is open. Come and talk to me about what you want to see,” she said.