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As a teenager, Perin Patel ’22 M.S. 23 was keenly aware of his parents’ struggle to make life work in the United States.

His family immigrated from Chalamali, a small village in western India where they ran a cotton farm,  when he was 13. As his parents learned English, Patel interpreted bills and filled out paperwork. In high school in Bennington, Vermont, he experienced culture shock. They were “one of two brown families” in town, Patel says, and the British English that Patel knew didn’t always translate. “My friends in high school were my teachers.”

After being accepted at �պ����� in his senior year, Patel enrolled in the Summer Enrichment Scholars Program, a free five-week experience run by �պ�����’s Mosaic Center for Students of Color, designed to help students of color, first-generation, and students of lower socioeconomic status connect with each other and decode how to navigate the university and persist to graduation.

“I was able to find a sense of belonging with the people I met here,” he says, sitting in the Mosaic Center’s meeting room, underneath a poster of a butterfly with the words “migration is beautiful.”

Patel is the first in his family to attend college and grew up with a specific view of what higher education was for—a steppingstone to a better life. He felt pressure to succeed, even though most of that pressure came from himself.

“I grew up in a culture where we are always asked to do better,” he explains. “Be the first in your class. … Seeing how much we have struggled financially, socially, I just felt education would be a way of finding a sense of (direction) in life.”

As a kid in India, Patel brushed his teeth using chewing sticks supplied by his grandmother. Most people from his village have no idea what a dentist is, he says. He learned about the profession in Vermont during high school when he shadowed a local dentist. He started mentally laying the foundation for his future: go to college, do well, and become a dentist.

Patel’s freshman year—for the first time—he was plugged in socially. But the neuroscience major began struggling academically.

“That was the learning moment,” he says.

Perin Patel credits relationships he established with peers and administrators during �պ�����'s Summer Enrichment Scholars Program, a free five-week experience run by the university's Mosaic Center for Students of Color, as helping him to develop a sense of belonging in college.

When COVID-19 hit, he, like many people, struggled with the fallout of uncertainty. Patel lived in emergency housing when everyone was sent home, wondering what “normal” would be, and if it would ever return.

“I learned to meditate,” he says. “I sought help.”

At the Mosaic Center, Patel felt comfortable sharing his academic struggles. There he could relate to other students of color who sometimes felt uncomfortable raising their hands to ask questions in predominantly white spaces. He felt supported, Patel says, and that allowed him the freedom to transform. He became a peer advisor for SESP, treasurer of the Asian Student Union, a teaching assistant in the biochemistry department, and an undergraduate coordinator for the Indian Student Association.

And because he had a support system in place, Patel was comfortable tapping into his �պ����� network who steered him toward a better path. People like Alex Yin, executive director of Institutional Research and Assessment, and Bev Belisle, director of the Mosaic Center, helped him course correct. Over the next two years Patel boosted his GPA from 2.55 to above 3.3. Belisle and Yin taught him how to write an admissions essay and connect what he was able to accomplish during his time at �պ�����.

“In my culture … we are not taught to brag," Patel says. "It was hard to see all I’ve done here.”

What he has done is tried to make students of color feel like they, too, belong at �պ�����. His senior year he was awarded the prestigious F.T. Kidder Medal, which is presented to the student who best exemplifies character, leadership, and scholarship traits and is named in honor of Fred T. Kidder, a graduate of the class of 1880 and the College of Medicine in 1883. Kidder later served on �պ����� Board of Trustees.

After graduating, Patel pursued his at �պ����� while serving as the Mosaic Center’s coordinator of leadership development and programs. He organized programs throughout the year that build community within the BIPOC populations and taught students how to recognize racism, respond to it, and replenish after experiencing it. During his five years at �պ�����, Patel has mentored many students of color at �պ�����, which gave him “a purpose,” and worked to educate �պ����� officials about the challenges that BIPOC students may face.

For instance, sometimes a student’s culture conflicts with the academic calendar and activities listed in a class syllabus. Consider a student fasting for religious reasons during Ramadan when a test is scheduled, Patel says. Educating faculty members about things to look for and ways to be more accommodating to students with different backgrounds is an important piece of the university’s goal to be more inclusive, he says. “Understanding that different students will have different needs depending on their practices. This is what is going to help our student retention.”

These days Patel is no longer afraid to raise his hand, no longer shy about using his voice. After being accepted into his dream school for dentistry this spring, he will use what he learned about leadership and inclusion to “create a community where people of all backgrounds feel comfortable coming into my practice.”