LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff Welcomes New Assistant Director Steven C. Sweat

December 5th, 2025 in Community, Faculty & Staff, News

Steven C. Sweat, M.Ed. (They/Them/Theirs) joins our LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff with 2 decades of experience as a higher education practitioner in various capacities. A proud Black, Gay man within the field, Steven's work began in residence life and housing services, drawing on prior experience in paraprofessional and professional training and development, residential curricula support, campus community engagement, student organization advising, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmatic efforts. Steven comes to us after building and enhancing DEI training and development strategies and facilitating inclusive student organization engagement within residence life at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell).

Currently, they are a doctoral student within the Leadership in Education PhD program at UMass Lowell. Steven's research interests include DEI efforts in higher education, with a dissertation topic focused on exploring student affairs practitioners’ sense of workplace belonging. Built on the foundation of supporting college students’ sense of belonging, Steven believes that equitable time and space should be devoted to understanding and supporting higher education and student affairs practitioners’ workplace belonging as it influences student-centered and overall institutional outcomes. Their research agenda aspirations include exploring the best ways to amplify historically marginalized voices within professional higher education spaces, critically reviewing methodologies through pragmatic and transformative paradigms, and respecting the narratives offered by research participants by viewing them as co-investigators. Steven also holds a Master of Education degree in Student Personnel in Higher Education from the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Clemson University. They aspire to use their professional and educational work to pave a career trajectory to a chief diversity officer role, advocating for inclusive excellence within higher education.

Steven is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), an alumnx of the Social Justice Training Institute (SJTI), and a natural group facilitator within training and development circles. While working with UMass Lowell's residence life department, they crafted and publicized organizational belonging statements; facilitated professional development sessions around having critical conversations, understanding othering versus belonging beliefs, and practicing cultural humility; trained student leaders on implicit bias within academic settings; and developed diversity action plan materials for strategic planning and assessment needs. Steven further collaborated with campus partners on bystander intervention strategies for microaggressions within academia through an ADVANCE initiative from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for UMass Lowell's Office for Faculty Equity and Resilience (OFER). Beyond UMass Lowell, Steven engaged in various learning and facilitation experiences for students and professionals alike, from the Retreat for Social Justice at Towson University, to a mentorship program for LGBTQIA+ professionals within the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), to building the foundation for an annual regional DEI drive-in conference for residence life and housing professionals and leaders within the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate of College and University Housing Officers (MACUHO).

Steven enjoys getting to know the "person behind the position," making efforts to build connections, bridge communities, and broaden collaborations. Important people-focused frameworks, such as inclusive supervision and shared equity leadership, guide their approach to higher education practice. Their personal and professional work centers on co-creating and facilitating social and educational experiences for diverse staff and colleagues through understanding intersectionality and respecting their lived realities. They hold the following personality assessment themes, focused on engaging within multicultural environments: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - ENFJ; True Colors - Blue, Gold; Enneagram - "The Giver;" Gallup's CliftonStrengths - Developer, Achiever, Connectedness, Positivity, Belief. Through these descriptors, Steven seeks to practice lifelong learning ideals by building coalitions and fostering community in the workplace.

When Steven is not working hard, they enjoy exemplifying work/life balance by listening to music, taking reflective walks in nature or around the city, watching anime, learning about Japanese culture, enjoying board games, and playing healer and support classes in video games. They are excited to work at the first LGBTQIA+ center of its kind and bond with peers, teams, and departments across BU and beyond!

For colleagues interested in welcoming Steven on their first day at BU, please join us on Monday, December 15 at 1 pm. For more information about the location, please email us at lgbtqia@bu.edu.