From left, ACN co-chairs Sara Monteiro ’08 and Bobby Britto-Oliveira ’06, M.S. ’11; Michelle Fontes ’96, M.A. ’11; and Gina Miranda ’20

The Alumni of Color Network celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2022. Michelle Fontes ’96, M.A. ’11, the group’s organizer, reflects on how one of URI’s strongest alumni groups got started and what lies ahead.

By Marybeth Reilly-McGreen

In 2007, President George W. Bush signed the Fair Minimum Wage Act into law, Nancy Pelosi was the first woman to be elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Forest Whitaker became the third Black actor in history to win an Academy Award for best male actor. Together, the three events signaled a change: Historically underrepresented groups, minimum wage earners, women, and people of color were coming into power, occupying spaces and roles previously denied them.

The year 2007 is significant for URI, too, as it marks the inception of the Alumni of Color Network (ACN), a group that provides personal and professional development, mentoring and networking, advocacy, and community-building opportunities for its members. Michelle Fontes ’96, M.A. ’11, assistant dean of diversity, retention, and student success initiatives for the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, recalls the critical contributions of some of the early leaders of the group she piloted, including Earl Smith III ’90; Gerald Williams ’92, M.A. ’00; Charles ‘Chuck’ Watson ’93, M.A. ’21; Karoline Oliveira ’94, M.S. ’03; Abu Bakr ’73, M.S. ’84, M.B.A. ’88; Ana Barraza ’95, M.S. ’04; and Tommy Garrick ’90.

“That group brainstormed how we might establish a committee,” Fontes says, “and that’s how the Alumni of Color Network was established.”

In 2007, Fontes was working in URI’s Alumni Relations Office. “I recognized, as a woman of color, that there was no representation of folks of color, and I knew a lot of alumni,” Fontes says. “It made me question why we weren’t involved. No judgment or blame, I just think if you don’t have an eye on these things, if you are not a person in that role in the alumni office planning events, you don’t see what’s missing.”

All that existed for alumni of color at that time was an occasional, volunteer-run panel event featuring distinguished graduates talking about their careers. The turnout was modest—the panel’s audience was easily accommodated in the URI Alumni Center. Fontes saw that her first task would be to convene alumni of color employed by URI to discuss formalizing and promoting the panel, as well as other initiatives and events. Fortunately, bringing people together is one of Fontes’ specialties. She sought student involvement and input, which resulted in a second wave of members including, as she recalls, Robert “Bobby” Britto-Oliveira ’06, M.S. ’11; Wynston Wilson ’08, M.A. ’13; Marquis Jones ’12; Tyrene Jones ’10, M.P.A. ’14; Cyntoya Simmons ’14; Kevin Martins ’07, M.B.A. ’10; John Cruz ’03, M.S. ’14; Margarida Da Graca, ’09, M.S. ’13; and Wilson Okello, M.S. ’12. Fontes notes with pride that some of those former students are still active in ACN today.

Britto-Oliveira, who is now assistant director of URI’s Multicultural Student Services Center, was a graduate student in 2009 when he first became involved with ACN. “I’d heard of Michelle and her involvement with Talent Development and of what she was doing with the network. She asked me to do outreach, to try to generate student interest in the alumni panel event. I knew a lot of students. That year, the event might’ve had 35 to 40 students in the audience. I was disappointed, but evidently that was real growth from the previous year when they had seven to 10 students.

“The following year we had 75 students; the year after that 150, and we were maxing out the Memorial Union Ballroom,” Britto-Oliveira says. The annual alumni panel presentation continues to be one of the most successful ACN events.

Sharing the wisdom of experience

Britto-Oliveira now co-chairs the ACN, which has added networking get-togethers at Alumni and Family Weekend to its event offerings, as well as an event for recent graduates. His face registers a bit of surprise—or maybe wonder—that a promise to put some students in some seats led to a leadership role in the organization.
“I’ve definitely benefited from the mentorship and guidance that our seasoned alumni have provided over the years,” Britto-Oliveira says, noting that the ACN is a natural complement to the work being done by the University’s Talent Development office, an admission program that serves in-state students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, as well as the Multicultural Student Services Center, which provides meeting space and resources to students. “My hope is that ACN is a resource for all students of color once they graduate,” he says. “We try to get students involved right away. We’re trying to let them know that we’re here and that we’ve experienced what they’re experiencing.”

Britto-Oliveira also hopes exposure to successful alumni and hearing about their student years at URI narrows the natural gap that comes from generational differences.

“One of the questions often put to the panelists is to recount their challenges and successes as students of color at URI, and the whole point of that is to get the students to see themselves in us, however many years down the line that may be.”

Britto-Oliveira speaks from experience. As a student, he realized some of the older alumni of color were, in a real sense, his benefactors. He recalled the work of Fontes, along with that of Malcolm Anderson ’94, and Karoline Oliveira ’94, M.S. ’03, in the formation of the Black Student Leadership Group (BSLG). In November of 1992, the BSLG made the front page of the state’s largest daily newspaper, The Providence Journal-Bulletin, for its peaceful takeover of Taft Hall. Its actions motivated the University to direct more funds to the Talent Development program and to create the precursor to the Multicultural Student Services Center that Britto-Oliviera now helps direct.

Making it easier for those who follow

“The struggles the Black Student Leadership Group went through might not have been my struggles, but they made it easier for me,” Britto-Oliveira says. “We didn’t have to go through what they did. And our goal as more recent alumni is to make it easier for incoming students, for the classes that come after.”

Britto-Oliveira’s co-chair Sara Monteiro ’08 also approaches her ACN volunteer work with an awareness of legacy. Her uncle, the late Antonio DaMoura ’92, was one of the 1992 student activists and founder of the Cape Verdean Students Association. “For me, it’s always a carrying of the torch,” she says. “URI is a multigenerational school for my family. My mother went there, and I have two lovely boys who clearly see URI as an option someday.”

“My hope is that ACN is a resource for all students of color once they graduate.”
—Bobby Britto-Oliveira

Monteiro estimates she devotes 12 or more hours a week to the ACN. She is particularly dedicated to its philanthropic work. In 2020, the group was instrumental in raising $25,000 for the RhodyNow: Students First Fund, which provides immediate financial assistance for students in need, says Amy Simonini, associate director of Alumni Engagement. Spurred by that success, ACN has established an endowment, the Alumni of Color Network Student Scholars Fund, which will generate scholarships for students of color. They are currently working toward their goal of raising $50,000 for that fund.

“ACN is one of the most dedicated groups I have worked with in nonprofit and higher education management,” Simonini says. “The ACN volunteers are passionate, engaged, hardworking, devoted, and dedicated to making sure that they provide resources for students and connect alumni to lifelong learning and engagement opportunities.”

Motherhood proved additional motivation for Monteiro. “My children make me understand how pivotal this work could be and how important it is, as a parent, to think equitably about funding education,” she says. “I’m trying to create roads for families to envision higher education as a possibility at all times.

“And so I do this work for the advancement of the next generation because it was the work of my uncle that allowed me to be a student and a thriving adult. And I want my children to go there under stronger circumstances still.”

Looking back over the last 15 years, Bobby Britto-Oliviera will tell you that ACN’s successes started much earlier than 2007. Arguably, 15 years earlier. Michelle Fontes, Antonio DaMoura, and their fellow student activists sowed the seeds with the 1992 protest. “Let’s be cognizant of where I’m at right now,” Britto-Oliviera says. “The Multicultural Student Services Center would not have existed had it not been for their initiative and their ability to be changemakers. I wouldn’t be in this office right now. There wouldn’t be all these fabulous groups of multicultural student organizations that have a home on campus.”

Seeing the spark; having the focus

“Michelle’s someone who sees the spark and has the focus, and she sees it in people who don’t necessarily see it in themselves, myself included,” Britto-Oliveira says of Fontes. My involvement in ACN was just to be a general member. I wasn’t trying to take any leadership role, but because of Michelle I was able to see what she saw in me.”
As for Fontes, 15 years of effort is paying dividends. “I’m very proud of my role in helping it all come together,” she says and grins. “But I’m not one for leading a group to do something. I want them to do what they want so that they take ownership of it.” Those who know Fontes, though, will tell you that, besides bringing people together, another one of her specialties is giving people a gentle nudge now and then to help close the gap between a person and their purpose. Fontes says she hopes that the Alumni of Color Network will see growth in membership and in the endowment over the next 15 years. “The endowment creates an opportunity for alumni, especially those from diverse backgrounds, to stay involved by giving back,” Fontes says.

If there’s a silver lining to the pandemic, Fontes says, it is that it spurred people to engage with new technology that makes it possible for alumni to gather virtually. Fontes practices outreach with a zeal others save for favorite hobbies. “There are people out there who don’t know this group exists,” she says. “They don’t know how it came to be, and they don’t know how to support it.”

But when they do?

“The power of bringing people together and naming it the Alumni of Color Network—to be able to say to a person from a diverse background, ‘Here is a group specifically for you,’” Fontes begins, and then pauses. “Well, that’s pretty amazing, right?” •

Photos: Nora Lewis, Courtesy URI Foundation & Alumni Engagement

If you wish to contribute to the Alumni of Color Network Student Scholars Fund, you may contribute here: urifae.org/ACNScholars. For information, contact Mat DeLaire at 401.874.2207 or mat_delaire@uri.edu.