There's a treasure hunt going on in the home of Matthew Campbell-Williams.
Competition is so fierce for his guest tickets to Black Graduation at the University of Toronto that the fourth-year commerce and criminology student has hidden a pair of tickets for his parents, cousins or nephews to find. He says the excitement surrounding the event - a ceremony and party organized by Black students around convocation - shows it isn't just for graduates.
"It's for our families and community as well," he says.
Organizers are expecting more than 400 people to attend this year's event at Hart House on June 26, including students, faculty, staff, family and friends.
Campbell-Williams gets emotional - his eyes welling up - as he remembers his 11-year-old nephew seeing pictures of the first-ever Black graduation at U of T.
"The first thing he sees of university is that if he goes to university, he will feel worth on this campus," he says. "There will be a whole community out there who acknowleges his accomplishments."
Campbell-Williams has been working with Ayaan Abdulle and Anyika Mark to build on the success of the first-ever Black graduation at U of T last year. Although Black graduations and commencements have been held in the U.S., notably at Harvard and Columbia universities, they have yet to catch on in Canada.
Abdulle, who is the first in her family to go to university and is studying psychology and health policy at U of T Scarborough, says she'd like to see Black graduation become a tradition on more Canadian university campuses.
"Folks tend to neglect or forget about Canada's rich history with racism," she says. "It's not something that just plagues the U.S.
"Hopefully in the future, Black grads won't be an anomaly."
Read more about last year's event in the Toronto Star
Black graduation helps counter the isolation that many Black students feel on campus, says Mark, a fourth-year student in political science, Caribbean studies, and diaspora and transnational studies. She is president of the Black Students' Association.
"A lot of times Black students come to the school and feel like they're doing it alone," she says. "You go to your class of 1,500 students at Convocation Hall, and you're like, Why are there no people who look like me?'"
Being among Black students, faculty, staff and guests at last year's event was a reminder that there is a supportive community on campus.
Mark and Campbell-Williams, both executives in the BSA, have made the event part of the group's constitution so future generations of students carry on the tradition.
This time, organizers are inviting high school students to volunteer at the event. "We want to show them that U of T is a place you can come to, and succeed in," Mark says.
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