By: Bryanna Gallant

Every Thursday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., a variety of students, faculty and staff gather on the fourth floor of Donahue to chat, to mingle, and to laugh over coffee and bagels.

Diversity Services has hosted coffee hour once a week throughout each semester for the last five years. Accessible from either Donahue or Archer in room 481, members of the Suffolk community gather around a table filled with Bruegger’s bagels, cream cheese, coffee, and hot chocolate. While some people could only stay long enough to say hello and grab a cup of coffee, others are able to stay for the entire two hours. The conversation held by attendees incorporated everything from exams to weekend plans. There are also those always willing to offer advice when needed. It is an environment free of the stresses that life as a student can sometimes bring.

Coffee hour first started as a way to educate the Suffolk community about the Diversity Services office.

“We wanted to bring people into our space, because it can be a little hard to find,” said the Director of Diversity Services, Jacinda Félix Haro. “People love to come in to chat and have breakfast, but we also are a place people can count on to be here every week, where they can be themselves.”

For many students, coffee hour has become part of their weekly routine.

“I love it, it’s a really nice place to come every week,” said Suffolk sophomore Michelle Wallace, who began coming to coffee hour her freshman year. “I like to come as much as I can, and hate when I miss it,” she said.

Since coffee hour began it has increasingly grown in size.

“We’re now buying four big bagel bundles,” said Haro. Sometimes there are even small pastries and other snacks, which is much more than the one bundle that first fed those at coffee hour.  Student organizations may also co-sponsor a coffee hour, for a small fee, just as the Orientation and Residence Life groups have done in the past.

Coffee hour was also created to better serve Diversity Services’s mission of creating a welcoming and safe environment on Suffolk’s campus. Every year the office helps to sponsor a variety of different events at the university, including their support of the African American, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American student organizations, LGBTQ programs, as well as many social justice and educational trainings.

Diversity Services remains a positive resource for students on campus. The office also offers one on one counseling services, problem solving conversations, and helps to uphold Suffolk’s Policy Against Bias, Incidents, and Hate Crimes.

Events and programs run by Diversity Services are posted in their newsletter, on Facebook, and on Twitter.