WELCOME

I’ve been a student for many years.   But for just as many, I’ve been a ghost in the classroom. Not because I didn’t show up.   Not because I didn’t care.   But because the version of a student I represented—Black, older, disabled, and deeply lived—wasn’t one the university ever imagined belonging. In seminar rooms, I sat silently beside peers who never made room for conversation beyond the syllabus.   In group projects, I was the assumed outsider—too mature, too experienced, too… different.   And when the pandemic came, that thin thread of connection many students clung to?   It snapped completely. But what troubled me most wasn’t just the silence.   It was the way my absence from their stories was never even noticed.   Not in the memes.   Not in the community pages.   Not in the wellness campaigns.   Not even in the cries for better student support. I had all the same fears. The same housing needs.   The same tuition stress.   The same breakdowns behind closed doors.   And yet, I was *never included* in the telling of what it means to be a student today. This image—of me, present but uncounted—is not just symbolic.   It’s lived. It is what invisibility looks like when institutions pretend to be diverse while practicing erasure.   It is what loneliness feels like when you don’t even qualify to be considered lonely. But I refuse to let this silence go unchecked. I may not be the “typical” student.   But I am *still here.*   Still showing up.   Still worthy of being counted. And I know I’m not alone.