Last week marked Richard Eberheart’s first month as Point Loma Nazarene University’s new director of the Office for Multicultural and International Student Services, taking up a vacant position since August 2024.
A San Diego resident since earning his bachelor’s from San Diego State University in 2005, most recently, Eberheart was the student activities coordinator at Southwestern Community College, overseeing the school’s student government.
His first experience working in higher education was with SDSU as a student life advisor, after graduating with a master’s in counseling from the university in 2011. He was connected with the job after the position opened up temporarily and SDSU’s director of student life remembered Eberheart from his involvement in student government. From there, he said, he had grown to love working with students making an impact on their campuses and has pursued this path since.
“The reason why I think I like working with college students is this is kind of one of the last times you can be truly idealistic before cynicism kicks in,” Eberheart said. “So you get a chance to catch students while they’re still figuring things out. You get a chance to open their eyes to certain things – different perspectives that they may not have had coming from their hometowns. You get a chance to expose them to different things.”
He gave the example of PLNU’s most recent Cup of Culture event, put on by MOSAIC and the CJR. Parts of a documentary highlighting the Civil Rights Movement and what still needs to be done, called “Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise,” were played.
“The same [racist] rhetoric that we see now, you saw that 50, 60, years ago,” Eberheart said. “With college students, you still have that opportunity to help them understand some of that stuff, the world that they live in and the world that’s around them. So then, they hopefully can go and change it, and just every little bit helps.”
Amen Etefa, a Black Student Union leader, said that Eberheart was ready to jump into the new role from the first time she met him. His eagerness to get started and the encouragement he offered students, she said, showed up just when she needed it.
“From like the first week of him being here, he was ready to go,” Etefa said. “He was like, ‘Throw me in there. If you need me to say something at an event, put me there, I’ve got you.’ I think that was really nice to have because we haven’t had that for a few months.”
For Sophie Choe, the intern for the Asian Student Union, the vision for OMISS that Eberheart is conveying to the student leaders is encouraging. She said it is what the previous director Maya Walker hoped for – to make MOSAIC a core part of campus culture.
“I feel like as of this moment, MOSAIC is kind of only known amongst either students of color or humanities majors,” Choe said. “But, like Richard said, or like many people have echoed, we’d really like MOSAIC to be like any other integral part of this campus. Not just, like, there for when we have food events or something like that.”
While Eberheart didn’t specify his plans for MOSAIC, he said he is excited about his vision for the future in this role and making MOSAIC intrinsic on campus, but what comes first for him is building relationships with students.
“In a lot of ways, student life staff, we become one of the few places students feel like they can go to,” Eberheart said. “That they actually feel like if I go there, I’m not going to be judged; I’m not going to be looked down on; I’m not going to feel ostracized. And in other spaces, in particular, on this campus, for students of color, that’s really easy to fall into like, ‘Why am I even here? What’s the point?’ So, that care and connection, I feel like that’s just the foundation that we have to have.”
Carissa Cannon