Think Tank

A Platform for Our Voices

Fall 2006 marks the beginning of the Harvard Black Students Association’s online Think Tank. The Harvard Black Students Association (BSA) is an undergraduate student group of Harvard College that has a current membership of over 300 students. Given that the BSA’s mission is to “promote community interaction among African, African-American, and African-Carribean students at Harvard University [and] to provide a forum for the open expression of the political, social, and cultural views of Black Students,” the BSA Think Tank will pursue similar aims.

The goal of the Think Tank is simple: to provide a forum for the diverse voices of the Harvard black community to be heard and displayed through scholarly means. The Think Tank’s articles will be written by current Harvard undergraduates at the College and, occasionally, noteworthy scholars. Though the articles represent the viewpoints of the writers, they do not represent the viewpoints of the Think Tank staff (which consists of members of the BSA Publications Committee), the BSA Board, or the larger BSA membership.

The BSA Think Tank has no partisan affiliation. Unlike other think tanks, we hope to offer a diverse range of opinions and solutions to the black community, the larger American society and the world. We wish to explore means of addressing problems affecting the black community, the US and other parts of the world through a continual process of questioning and thinking. The Think Tank’s articles are not wholesale solutions, but rather they are pieces to a larger puzzle. Some may fit, others may not, and it is the reader’s glorious burden to determine that for him or herself.

The Think Tank will be student-run and will be staffed by a committee headed by the BSA Publications Chair. In addition to featuring student writers who are not members of the BSA Publications Committee, the committee will also write articles pertaining to domestic or international issues. These articles should be taken as the collective view of the members of the committee, as the committee will have discussed their differing viewpoints and solutions before publishing each article.

At the end of each year, the committee will publish a small journal outlining the overall findings and solutions of that year. This journal will be both online and in a hardcopy format that will be distributed around campus.

The BSA Publications committee also publishes inBlack, a literary magazine, in addition to running, editing, and updating the BSA Think Tank. Questions regarding the content or selection process of articles on the think tank should be directed to the current BSA Publications Chair or the writer of the article in question.

We hope that our new endeavor to broaden the reach of the voices of black Harvard undergraduates enlightens and inspires others in our community.
If you would like to contribute, please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,
Matthew Clair ‘09
BSA Publications Chair 2006-2007
Think Tank Founder