About the HTC

Where It All Began

The Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground was founded by Dean Emeritus George K. Makechnie (Wheelock ’29, ’31, Hon.’79) in 1986 to preserve and share the legacy of Dr. Howard Thurman. Howard Thurman was a man of religion, a world-renowned educator, a philosopher and a poet, and Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965. Thurman spent his life working to break barriers of divisiveness that separate people based on race, culture, religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity.

Boston University’s Cultural Hub

The Thurman Center is Boston University’s cultural hub, and, unlike many colleges and universities that have separate Centers based on race, Boston University’s Howard Thurman Center does not. The Thurman Center is intentionally inclusive and emphasizes the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone to build relationships and share experiences with others. The Thurman Center is a place where cultural expression in all of its forms is embraced and encouraged.

The Search for Common Ground

Through an array of culturally based programs, lectures, discussions, films, events, and resources, the center spreads Thurman’s belief in the unity of all people and his philosophy of the Search for Common Ground. Howard Thurman believed the Search was a two-fold journey.

The first step is one of personal self-exploration. He would say:

“When you can go deep down inside yourself, really know who you are and are secure in who you are—then—you can find yourself in every other human being.”

The second step, he believed, is that:

“we all have as human beings to want to be with others—the desire to be part of a community.”

Thurman believed:

“…that meaningful and creative shared experiences shared between people can be more compelling than all of the faiths, fears, concepts, ideologies, and prejudices that divide; and if these experiences can be multiplied and sustained over a sufficient duration of time, then any barrier that separates one person from another can be undermined and eliminated.”

The continuous goal of the Thurman Center is to create a Living Common Ground Community on this campus. Students are invited to make the center their “home away from home,” while experiencing self-discovery through interaction with others. Using Thurman’s words, we advise:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

The Centers of Influence

While the center’s philosophy and work are founded on the legacy of Howard Thurman, it is also supported by the legacies of many great people—trailblazers like Anna Howard Shaw, who focused on the root causes of social injustice, poverty, and women’s suffrage in America. She was the first woman to graduate from BU’s School of Theology, in 1878. Later, concerned with sickness and physical healing, she was among the first women to graduate from Boston University’s School of Medicine in 1885.

Message of Nonviolence

The center is also influenced by Mohandas Gandhi of India, who led his country to its independence through the philosophy of Ahimsa—nonviolence. After his meeting with Gandhi in India in 1935, it was Howard Thurman who brought Gandhi’s message of nonviolence to the United States. Howard Thurman also instilled Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while King was a graduate student at Boston University. And, the center’s work is certainly influenced by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the drum major for freedom and human rights for all, who used Gandhi’s nonviolence philosophy and Thurman’s unity message to drive the American Civil Rights Movement. These legacies and countless others inspire the programs, services, and resources of the Howard Thurman Center.

Student Ambassadors

The gems of the center are the Student Ambassadors. They are dedicated young people who are committed to Dr. Thurman’s legacy of breaking barriers and building community. They come from a variety of races, religions, cultures, and places. Formerly called the Associates in the Search for Common Ground, the name was changed to the Thurman Student Ambassadors in 2005 to give them a more contemporary and shorter name.