Mission Statement

The Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center strives to:

  • Provide community, support and resouces for all Boston College students with a focus on students of color, LGBTQ+, and historically marginalized students.

  • Educate faculty, staff, and students on how to build a community of belonging by celebrating identity and culture, building relationships, and fostering mentorship.

Vision

Our vision is to validate, elevate, and celebrate all student identities at Boston College.

Inspiration

Our work is inspired by the life and philosophy of Thea Bowman, a Catholic nun of the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, who 鈥渉elped people everywhere she went to explore their identity and to find their deepest humanity.鈥 (Smith & Feister, 1)

Pillars of the Office

Ingrained in our mission are the following:

Promote a Sense of Belonging

We provide counseling and tuition remission programs to ensure all students have equal access to the full college experience.

Build Community

We seek to bring members of the BC community together through events, retreats, and mentoring opportunities.

Support Opportunity

We recognize AHANA students who have contributed to campus life through service, academic excellence, or leadership.

BAIC Values

In 1973, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., then General of the Society of Jesus, coined the phrase 鈥渕en and women for others.鈥 He envisioned that graduates from Jesuit educational institutions would be people who worked for justice.

Our work is rooted in the Catholic tradition of our University, specifically in the Catholic Social Teaching Principles, which we understand express a commitment to addressing institutional racism and inequities for AHANA and low-income students. Our guiding principles are:

Human dignity and rights

We believe that a just society is based on respect for human dignity.

Common good

We believe that we all have a stake in ensuring that individuals within our community reach their fulfillment and can fully participate in their communities.

Subsidiarity

We believe that we have a duty to denounce unjust situations in society and to work with authorities to protect people from abuses.

Solidarity

We believe that our interdependence calls us to contribute to positive changes in society.

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