The February 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin sparked a nationwide discussion on race relations, one that was echoed across the Harvard community.

In response to demand for continued conversation on the topic, the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations organized a series of panels on race and justice that Foundation director S. Allen Counter intends to bring to all the Houses.

Since 1981, the Foundation has served to unite students of diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds in programs and initiatives that promote interracial and intercultural awareness.

In the past three decades, as the Harvard community has diversified, the Foundation has stepped up its role in supporting the activities and collaboration of student organizations, transforming the way that it influences cultural dialogue on campus.

WHY IT HAS CHANGED

While the Foundation was originally conceptualized as a solution to racial tensions at Harvard, the level of student mobilization on issues of race and cultural relations has increased since the its inception.

According to Counter, in the 1970s, Harvard began to admit minority students in significant numbers for the first time.

“Many students felt that they were in Harvard but not of Harvard,” Counter said.

At the time, there was much talk about the idea of a “Third World Center” to provide social and academic support for minority students, according to neuroscience professor John E. Dowling ’57, who has been a member of the Foundation’s faculty advisory committee since its inception. However, then-University President Derek C. Bok and the committee thought that a Third World Center would not have adequately addressed all of the issues present on a campus with a wide range of cultural groups and affiliations.

“They wanted to create something uniquely Harvard,” Counter said.

Bok organized a committee of faculty and students led by Reverend Peter J. Gomes to review proposals and efforts at other universities to foster race relations and promote identity for minority students. They aimed to create the best model for an institution that would respond to intercultural and race relations at the University—what would become the Harvard Foundation.

Bok and Gomes approached Counter to lead an umbrella organization for the multiplicity of student groups that sought a more prominent voice on campus.

Counter, who said he grew up in racially segregated Florida, traveled around the world for his studies. According to Counter, Bok and Gomes told him that his global experience made him a suitable candidate to direct the nascent organization.

In 1981, the University launched the Foundation as a center for students of all backgrounds.

As the Foundation has expanded its activities over the past 30 years, students have also formed their own organizations to address cultural and race relations on campus.

This expansion can be seen in the substantial proliferation of student groups affiliated with the organization’s Student Advisory Committee: from five at the Foundation’s start to over 80 today.

“The role of cultural organizations has changed just in my time at Harvard,” said Rabiya Ather ’15, president of the Harvard College Pakistani Students Association. “The want to understand and be aware of other cultures is constantly growing.”

Moreover, said Hassaan Shahawy ’16, a member of the board of the Harvard Islamic Society, organizations representing other cultures are becoming “more part of the institutionalized framework of the University.”

WHAT HAS CHANGED

To respond to a growing proliferation of student voices and activity on diversity, the Foundation has evolved in the way it connects organizations and advances cultural discourse. Members of student groups that work with the Foundation say that they increasingly look towards it as a source of expertise, as a platform for collaboration, and as a basis of support.

For years, groups that send representatives to the Foundation’s Student Advisory Committee have been able to request financial support for events that promote the discussion of minority issues. These representatives, along with the Foundation’s student interns, play a crucial role in determining the allocation of these funds, according to Dowling.

In addition to allocating funds, the team of undergraduate interns also initiates and organizes the events that the Foundation hosts. They act as liaisons to specific Student Advisory Committee groups, answering questions and providing resources as they plan their own initiatives.

Groups that share common goals are often at risk of “working alone,” said to Hilary J. Higgins ’15, president of Latinas Unidas.

“The Foundation is a powerful platform for groups and the University to collaborate on these issues,” she said.

The Foundation has different levels of interaction with different student groups. Aubrey J. Walker ’15, an intern at the organization, said “the groups use us as they see fit.”

Walker said that the organization is making a comprehensive effort to decrease barriers between the interns and administrators of the Foundation and the leaders of the array of groups affiliated with the Student Advisory Committee, opening up more effective communication channels between them.

The Foundation also reaches out to students and groups that are not involved with the Student Advisory Committee, like the Harvard College Pakistani Students Association.

“When the Foundation is working on an event that involves a particular culture, it tries to get a student group associated with that culture involved,” said Ather, president of the HCPSA. For instance, the Foundation contacted the HCPSA to “make Malala Yousafzai feel at home” during her visit to Harvard this September.

Student intern Eric Lu ’14 notes that all who work at the Foundation “keep themselves aware of the issues of today.” This constant push to respond to issues quickly prompts events like the series of panels inspired by the Trayvon Martin case.

To Neimy K. Escobar ’15, co-chair of the Harvard College Queer Students and Allies, the primary benefit of the Foundation is its expertise in promoting discussion within diverse communities.

“[Some groups] do not have the historical experience about how to go about it, which is where the Foundation comes in,” she said.