You are invited to share in the "soft opening" of what will soon be a mainstay of New Haven and the CT State Gateway community.

Gail McAvay and Ruby H. Melton, a Gateway Community College Foundation Board member, generously pledged $300,000 and hope to inspire like-minded leaders to learn about, advocate for, and invest in greater equity and social justice at Gateway and the wider community through the Melton McAvay Center for Equity and Social Justice at Gateway.

They've outlined a beautiful vision, and it is needed now more than ever. The Melton McAvay Center for Equity and Social Justice will bring together artists, advocates, entrepreneurs, policy makers, philanthropists, and students.

Hate and intolerance proliferate in our communities and across the state. In New Haven, the Pride Center recently was the target of a bomb threat. CT public librarians have been harassed for making available books about LGBTQIA, Black and Brown characters.

Reading levels, graduation rates, food security, housing access & quality, and health outcomes are among inequitable social and economic indicators. Residents in many New Haven neighborhoods fall short of people in cities and towns just next door.

Gateway is currently recruiting a director to launch and lead the center, organize its campus home, and map future activities and programs. Gateway is proud to have been chosen to house the center.

Where better than at Gateway - the flagship campus of CT State Community College?

Gateway’s students are 1/3 Black and 1/3 Hispanic. Four percent are international students. Forty-one percent of Gateway students are low-income based on Pell grant eligibility.

Our students know inequity. They know injustice. And they aspire for better.

In advance of an official opening, you’re invited to attend the Center’s first program, October 27 from 8:30 to 4.