As president of Disha, the student organization for South Asian women and nonbinary people, Chakraborty is fighting to create safe spaces on campus.
Byline: By Isabella Caswell
Sristi Chakraborty said she never misses a meeting or a hangout, even though the pre-med, chemistry fraternity member and president of Disha has a lot on her plate.
“I’ll do my homework at an event,” Chakraborty said. “I’ll take a meeting at an event, so that way I’m present. I think that means a lot just showing up.”
Disha is the student organization for South Asian women and non-binary people. Purvaja Kavuru, the executive liaison, said Chakraborty is someone you can trust to always be there.
“Within Disha or outside of Disha, she’s always there to support you or listen to you,” Kavuru said.
According to Kavuru, Chakraborty is close friends with the board members, she puts in the effort to get to know everyone on Disha, and she is almost always funny.
“She puts her heart and soul into everything she does, and also she’s hilarious,” Kompal Kumar, the internal vice president, said.
The students in Disha are a mix of immigrants, first-generation Americans and international students. Chakraborty immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was 5 but said she feels like a first-generation American because she has spent most of her life here.
Chakraborty said a lot of Disha members are students like her, South Asian by birth but who identify as American because they have been raised in the U.S.. Disha also has a lot of international student members who came directly from India after spending most of their lives there.
“It’s such a bridge to connect, and I think that’s really special to see that community come together even though we have our differences,” Chakraborty said.
Chakraborty joined Disha as its events coordinator during her first year at the university. The club had started three years earlier.
A year ago, Chakraborty was not sure she wanted to be president. She was going into her junior year, and she knew school was going to be more difficult as a pre-med student. But Chakraborty developed a vision for the club that she felt she had to pursue.
However, the longer Chakraborty spent as events coordinator, the more her vision grew for how she wanted to improve Disha. Two friends on the board, now her vice presidents, convinced her to apply for the role of president..
Chakraborty handles the communications, applies for and handles grant funding, oversees the next year’s Disha board application process and much more.
“The way I like to put it is that I fill in the gaps,” Chakraborty said.
Chakraborty models her work after last year’s inspiring executive board.
Last year, funding for Disha fell through, and they were not able to hold as many Disha events as they wanted. They held bake sales and Chipotle fundraisers to scrape together funds. Last year’s board, however, created a vision for the future of Disha and passed it on to Chakraborty.
The previous president wanted a series of Disha events held in March to celebrate Women’s History Month, but they could not afford that. Chakraborty is grateful they were able to do that this year for the first time. One of the events includes a self-defense workshop to promote self-confidence, empowerment and safety.
“The vision I have is just keep raising the bar,” Chakraborty said. “We’ve made our events go from like Bruininks to the Great Hall (Coffman Union). I hope we eventually get to raising the bar every year.”
Chakraborty also worked to host open mic nights with guiding conversation topics this year. Their most recent was about womanhood in March. She said all are welcome, and everyone is invited to share their experiences related to the theme of the night.
“It just brings about a safe space for people to express themselves,” Chakraborty said.
Outside of being the president of Disha, Chakraborty balances a million other things.
She is a student researcher at the surgery clinical trials office on campus after she fell in love with the research side of medicine at this job in her sophomore year and became a pre-med student.
Chakraborty is the president of the chemistry fraternity, Alpha Chi Sigma, which is a very small, professional fraternity with six members. She aids in spreading the knowledge of chemistry.
Last year, the frat helped Boy Scouts earn their merit badges for chemistry. Occasionally, they give chemistry lessons at local museums too.
And, to do something for herself, Chakraborty loves to work out and reach new fitness goals.
“It gives me a goal outside of academics or clubs or whatever,” Chakraborty said. “It’s nice to have something for myself.”
Growing up, Chakraborty moved around a lot. Her family originally immigrated to New Jersey and then moved to California when she was 7 and lived there for six years. After that, they moved to Aurora, Colorado where Chakraborty lived out her adolescence.
At 7, Chakraborty said she hated moving. Until she moved to Colorado, having to build new friendships and a community of connections was not a strength of hers.
In Colorado, she made friends almost immediately.
“That’s really helped me in college too,” Chakraborty said. “It was a lot easier to form a community in Minnesota, having moved around so much.”
Disha even helped spark an old hobby of Chakraborty’s — dancing.
Disha was featured at the Indian Student Association’s fall show “Mastani” in November. Chakraborty choreographed her own dance for the show.
She has been dancing Kathak, a genre of Indian classical dance, since she was ten. The Disha dance performances, featured for the first time ever, allowed for the board to bond strongly as well.
To Chakraborty, dancing as a team was some of the most rewarding work being president has offered her.
“Doing dance practices every week and showing up every week really brought us together as a board,” Chakraborty said. “It’s really fun to see everybody’s different talents come out. I think that’s the most rewarding part. It’s nice to encourage people’s other talents on Disha.”