WKU News

Why Knot Us chose to end the school year by giving the Black Male Scholars at Bowling Green Junior High School a fun day on the Hill. 

Scholars started at the bottom of the Hill venturing into the First Year Village and made their way through academic buildings and the Mahurin Honors College as part of their tour led by Shamon Holland, a junior Sports Management major from Lexington. The 6th and 7th graders engaged in activities, lunch and ended with a game of kickball on South Lawn.

Jeanbosco Tuyisenge, a Finance major from Bowling Green, is the Community Service Chair for Why Knot Us.

“All my life I was only told about the academic aspect of college. It wasn’t until I came to WKU that I found out that college can give you some of the best times of your life,” Tuyisenge said. “We want to challenge them mentally, but we also want them to have fun.” 

By “challenge them mentally,” Tuyisenge is referring to the team-building activities that Why Knot Us incorporated into the day. One specifically led to the scholars striving to get from their starting point and end point while working together.

The Why Knot Us program at WKU was created to improve retention, impact, and quality of life through professional and personal development opportunities. This Black Male Initiative began in the fall of 2020, and they began working with the Black Male Scholars at Bowling Green Junior High after it started in 2021. 

“We want to impact the next generation so they know what a leader looks like,” said Tijuan Neal II, Graduate Assistant with the Intercultural Student Engagement Center, majoring in Family and Marriage Programs. “We also strive for academic success and giving back to the community. All these things represent not just our goals but the type of African American men we strive to be.”

More than 30 WKU students participate in Why Knot Us, which is a program of the WKU Intercultural Student Engagement Center.  On April 20, 2023, Why Knot Us received the Humanitarian Award presented by the Black Student Alliance, which was determined by a vote of the WKU students. You can learn more about them at wku.edu/isec/whyknotus.