少女福利

Kelechi 鈥淜C鈥� Onuoha works on upgrading the Alumni Hall basement walls recently. (photos by Kaylee Sayers ’23)

Kelechi 鈥淜C鈥� Onuoha, a junior biology and philosophy major from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, has been a Resident Assistant (RA) at Saint Michael鈥檚 College since her sophomore year in Alumni Hall, a dorm housing first-years and sophomores. A recent creative project there called 鈥淢urals on a Mission鈥� demonstrated just how much she cares about 鈥渉er鈥� students.

The residence hall has not had a renovation in 50 years, and the negative language she hears on campus about Alumni motivated Onuoha to make a change. She petitioned Jeff Vincent, the director of Residential Life, for a budget to renovate Alumni Hall鈥檚 basement by painting murals on the previously dull yellow walls, which now are a crisp white with colorful affirmations and student hand prints covering the surface.

She said her desire to become an RA arose during her time as a first-year student on campus. 鈥淚 loved my first-year RA,鈥� Onuoha said, 鈥渂ut she really wasn鈥檛 available鈥� especially given the struggles of a student of color on campus. I just needed that support. I became an RA to be the RA that I would have wanted as a first-year.鈥�

Affirmations such as these on a wall are part of the Alumni basement improvements.

Students who know her say Onuoha pours her heart and soul into her work as an RA. She cares deeply about her residents and wants them to succeed. That commitment to make Alumni Hall a positive and welcoming environment for its residents inspired the recent 鈥淢urals on a Mission鈥� Uplift event.

鈥淎lumni has been called 鈥榯he slums,鈥� it鈥檚 been called 鈥榞hetto鈥︹�� and I saw all these residents who were wonderful people who were brilliant, talented, all these skillful people,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he condition of the place where we lived didn鈥檛 match the quality of the people who were living there.鈥� By intentionally using positive language 鈥� actual words appear on the walls with the bright new color schemes in the basement renovation — she hopes to inspire a lasting legacy of positive rather than negative language about Alumni Hall around campus.

One ultimate goal, she said, is to inspire students to 鈥済o into this space that鈥檚 artistic and colorful, and start creating [their] own ideas to propel [their] lives forward.鈥�