IBL Student Groups

IBL Collective

IBL Engage

IBL Engage advances research, collaboration, and community engagement by cultivating meaningful connections among faculty and staff across the university. Anchored in the USF Institute on Black Life, IBL Engage is grounded in the belief that relationships are essential infrastructure for scholarly excellence and institutional impact. Engage creates welcoming spaces where faculty and staff can build relationships, exchange ideas, and grow professionally. By bringing people together across roles, disciplines, and communities, IBL Engage strengthens our collective capacity to support work aligned with the IBL mission.

The Student Collective

 The Student Collective is an undergraduate community where students come together to explore, research, and reflect on issues impacting academic life across disciplines. Through collaborative learning, discussion, analysis, entertainment, and mentorship, members develop critical thinking, networking, and community engagement skills while building confidence as scholars and leaders. The Collective fosters an inclusive space where students can think deeply, speak boldly, and thrive together.

The Southern Griot

The Southern Griot is a graduate student collective dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary research on academic life, history, culture, political struggle, social prejudice, and more. Rooted in the tradition of the griot as historian, storyteller, and truth-keeper, the group cultivates scholarship, intellectual community, and public engagement. Members gather to workshop research, build professional networks, and contribute to conversations that bridge the academy and the broader community.