When LaVerne Gyant first arrived at NIU, one thing about the university stood out. While she liked the positive energy of NIU students, the thing that attracted her most to the school was … the ponds.

“It was cold here … When the weather started breaking, I went and cooled out by the pond,” said Gyant, director of the Center for Black Studies.

Wearing a green and white scarf over her braided hair, with AM 1390 playing in the background of her office, Gyant spoke Thursday morning about this year’s Black History Month events at NIU.

“I think our programs went very well,” she said. “Most of it is really organized by the students. The students did an excellent job this year. I went to just about everything. Each one of them, for me, I learned something new.”

Gyant grew up in what is now one of the poorest cities in the U.S.: Chester, Pa. It wasn’t that way when she was being raised there, but once Ford and other businesses left, the town never recovered.

She received her undergraduate degree from Cheyney University before attending Pennsylvania State University for her graduate studies. She was later PSU’s director of African American Studies and was responsible for transforming it from a program into a department. She wants do the same thing at the Center for Black Studies at NIU, a place she calls NIU’s “best kept secret.”

“It’s one of my wishes to make [black studies] a major and offer a graduate studies certificate in black studies,” she said. Students can now take black studies only as a minor.

While Gyant acknowledged that race relations have improved since she started at NIU in 1994, she said there is still progress to be made.

“There’s still this separation,” she said. “I think there’s still some issues that are not solved, but at least the university tries to address them before they mount… Now it’s up to the students to say, ‘Okay, what are we going to do to bridge the gap?’ … Because you all are going to have to work together when you get out.”

The center is the only of its kind in the U.S. to offer both a black studies program and student support all in one location, Gyant said. Dorothea Burton, senior general studies major, is a student who’s benefited from the center and its staff. “You get a lot of good support over here,” she said. “If they can’t meet my needs, they’ll tell me where to go.”

Regina Curry is coordinator of Success and Succeed (S-Plan), a mentoring retention program at the center. Her job is to make students feel like they’re a part of NIU.

“Once they know they’re a Huskie, we got ‘em,” she said.