CUNY Black Male Initiative
Black Male Initiative/Medical Career Success Program
The Black Male Initiative
The CUNY Black Male Initiative (BMI) is a university-wide student development initiative with over 30 projects focused on increasing matriculation, retention, and graduation rates of underrepresented students, particularly men of color. CUNY BMI works in six strategic areas with the goal to increase enrollment of students from demographic groups severely underrepresented in higher education by providing academic and cultural support to help ensure that participants successfully complete college and graduate. CUNY BMI programs are committed to diversity recruitment; culturally competent peer-to-peer mentoring; academic enhancements; institutional commitment; advisory committee and; socioemotional programming. For more information visit the CUNY B.M.I. website at www.cuny.edu/bmi.
Sophie Davis /
CUNY Med BMI Mission Statement
The Sophie Davis Black Male Initiative, formally known as The Medical Career Success Program (MCSP) started in 2006 as a support group for African American male students who sought to mentor and tutor younger Black men enrolled in the Sophie Davis/ CUNY School of Medicine Program. These twelve founders comprised the largest class of black male cohorts to graduate Sophie Davis/CUNY School of Medicine. Through mentorship and leadership, their goal was to help increase Black male success in the program and enhance clinical experiences of students from groups historically underrepresented in medicine particularly, African, African-American/Black, Caribbean and Latino/Hispanic men.
U.S. Wide & International Influence
The MCSP is committed to community engagement but also works to have national and international impact. We have held benefit dinners that generate contributions for relief efforts to Flint, Michigan (in response to the Flint Water Crisis), to Haiti, (in response to a plague of natural disasters) and Criminal Justice Reform for the unjustly incarcerated. We will continue to partner with organizations to increase our local, national and global relief efforts.
Key Partnerships & community involvement:
Students National Medical Association
American Medical Student Association
Mentoring in Medicine
Tutoring and mentorship at Harlem High Schools
30 plus other CUNY B.M.I. Projects
CUNY School of Medicine Alumni
Switch It Up Break It Down – mentorship of Harlem elementary, middle and high school students
Reading Partners NYC
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The MCSP has established many policies in order to assure the best college experience for its members. Through our program we have enhanced: black male achievement, strengthened retention rates, increased awareness by securing key elected positions on committees of the Sophie Davis Student Government, established high school student tutoring/mentorship programs, and created the Medical Ambassadors Internship Program. MCSP members have served in Colin Powell Fellowships in Leadership and Public Service, Mayor’s Health Literacy Fellowships, and engaged in research opportunities, including SPURS Biomedical Research, the Sloan Kettering Research Program, Partnership Undergraduate Research Training and Translational Research Training in Addictions for Underrepresented Groups.