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Future environmental engineer takes helm of UC student government

Meet UC Student Body President Isaac Smitherman. He's a third-year environmental engineering major. Smitherman, a Black openly gay student and possibly the first to lead the UC student body, is also a vegan and a proponent of sustainable practices that support human, ecological and economic health and well-being.
cedric.ricks@uc.edu (Cedric Ricks) | Fri, Aug 12, 2022

Martinez, a fifth-year student studying computer science, says UC student government wants to work more closely with student centers.

“I think a large focus of our platform is to veer away from event planning and programming and steer toward resource building and supporting the student centers we have on campus,” says Martinez. “We want to make more resources available to students like creating a whole new position within the international student office, or creating a diversity, inclusion and equity townhall with the centers, all of which is incredibly focused on the student body and what we can do for them.”

Smitherman says student leaders were pleased with the UC Board of Trustees June 28 decision to rename all campus spaces connected to university founder Charles McMicken. McMicken’s will neither requested nor required that his name be formally associated with the university in any way.

 A 2019 Working Group at the university recommended the change based on McMicken’s segregationist views in his will and his slave-holding history, which “have long thought to be the genesis of the very difficult times that African American students have experienced at UC and symbolic of them.”

“We are excited to see the announcement,” says Smitherman. “We have had a few really good conversations with the board of trustees in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion and we are just happy to see that they were responsive. They heard us out.”

Specifically, for the time being, McMicken Hall will become Arts & Sciences Hall; McMicken Commons will become Bearcats Commons; McMicken Circle will become University Circle; and Mick & Mack’s Contemporary Café will become Bearcats Café.

“A lot of things are going on and I feel like the university is doing a good job of trying to handle them, so we are now pulling more people into this conversation on diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Smitherman. “Let’s hear more specifics of what the students want to see. How can students be supported?”