for the first time in campus history Seton Hall University is welcoming a certified chapter of the NAACP it's considered a major milestone for the school which came about thanks to a student-led effort students were also the driving force last year in keeping Seton Hall's Africana studies Department alive holding protests and sit-ins on campus to revive what was New Jersey's first college level program dedicated to the study of African-American history and culture now they're ushering in a new era Seton Hall's NAACP chapter inaugural president Imani Corbett says they hope to bring about more equality and justice and she joins me now Imani welcome it is so great to have you congratulations first off this is obviously a huge honor what do you see as the role of this chapter in the times that we're in right now I definitely see the chapter helping in more advocacy efforts like again we're coming up on a huge election year I definitely want to make sure that all college students are able to vote and educated on the political economy of now I definitely hope to see more of um Africana studies programs implemented in the chapter as well with the help of the NAACP you were pretty integral yes in getting this chapter to be uh inaugurated on the campus was there a void or a gap that you saw that you felt hey this could be the thing that fills that yes I think with the recent protest as well that we had last semester I think that was kind of like the driving force of me wanting to help start the NAACP chapter as well as what the NAACP has to offer for the college students where do you see in this coming year we've got you mentioned a presidential election coming up but in New Jersey we also have a big US Senate race next year we've got a gubinatorial uh election more and more campaigns are looking to college students in their efforts to get the vote out do you see yourselves as a chapter being pretty pivotal in the elections coming up yes definitely I definitely want to help the college students get to know like what there is to vote and how to vote as well most college students when you ask them are you registered to vote and half of them aren't but I think that the NAACP one of their big things is to help like get people to vote so I definitely want to help them your advisor was recently quoted saying you know the first 20 years of this Century are arguably more challenging for students uh than perhaps many of the Decades past do you agree what do you see as a college student and we're talking about a a university that is predominantly white um what do you see as as the challenges and especially in promoting diversity on campus um I see the challenge is maybe not enough people are possibly educated on diversity as well you know everyone's coming from different background so I think in order to kind of fix that I think everyone should take time and like get to know like everybody's different we all have similarities as well what's your first order of business uh now that you are official on campus um I definitely want to be able to gain more members the NAACP is all about like rise up and membership so I'm definitely looking towards having freshmen become involved I work in a Freshman building as an RA so it's much easy to kind of access them as well do you see a correlation between sort of starting the activism and the education and this area early on say as a freshman um evolving as folks go through school so if you're able to recruit students that young do you see a difference there I mean you've been active in a lot of different areas um on campus already what difference does it make being involved at an early age I think starting from an early age kind of helps like jumpstart their future career as well and I think starting from an early age kind of adds like sustainability to the chapter and that's all like we want as a chapter as well your adviser is also now the head of the Africana studies program that we mentioned do you see the two working hand inand definitely 100% the NAACP they have a history of helping with historic Supreme Court cases in education such as the Brown versus education Brown vers versus Board of Education sorry so I definitely see the chapter and Protect AFM helping each other out.

Imani Corbett is the new president of the NAACP chapter at Seton Hall University.

Imani great to talk to you thanks so much thank you for having me