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TACOMA, Wash. - This is the fifth part of a series highlighting Lute student-athletes, coaches, and administrators who are advocates and leaders in the community. Today's installment features Pacific Lutheran University football student-athlete Ty Shanklin. Shanklin is a junior communications major and a running back for the Lutes.

"Because its greater than yourself at the end of the day."

An Act six scholar with a minor in non-profit leadership, Ty Shanklin is working to make PLU a more welcoming and open space for all students.

Last Friday Shanklin along with student-athletes representing cross country, men's basketball, and the track & field programs, participated in the Black Student Union's inaugural flag raising ceremony on Red Square. The event included several student and staff speakers and culminated with the Black Lives Matter flag being hoisted up the flagpole where it will remain for the rest of the month of September.

Shanklin heard about the BSU event from several individuals including his roommate Andre Jones, who was one of the keynote student speakers at the flag raising ceremony. In addition to being roommates, Shanklin and Jones worked together along with men's basketball's Jordan Thomas in establishing Beyond Pacific, a club for young men of color on campus last academic year. It's a club that Shanklin continues to help grow this academic year and a group that has worked closely with Black Student Union, an organization Shanklin also participates in.

"It's cool, it creates a little bit more of a community since were on a predominantly white campus," said Shanklin. "It's nice being in these clubs because we have shared backgrounds, point of views, and values. It's not something I have to think twice about."

Shanklin's on campus involvement has steadily grown in his three years. The Burien, Washington native just participated in football as a first-year in 2018 before taking on a more active role at PLU last academic year, joining BSU and helping establish Beyond Pacific.

"PLU has its struggles, just like any other private school but at the same time it does really well with giving financial aid to students of color. They want students to come here and come here for four years and find that vocation and I think that's really cool."

Shanklin has found his vocation in his time on campus and plans on working for a non-profit after graduation. It's an environment he's had plenty of experience with, working for non-profits while at Highline High School including the YMCA and Camp Korey, a summer camp for children with medical conditions.

"Camp Korey was huge for me because I have a cleft palate and have had 36 surgeries. That was a place I could see people just like myself, people that went through surgeries and live in children's hospitals for months on end. That was huge for me. It just really helped me realize compassion for people and wanting to help people because its greater than yourself at the end of the day."

Beyond his work with non-profits and participation in on-campus organizations, Shanklin has additionally attended Black Lives Matter protests in his hometown of Burien while experiencing more BLM protests through his time working in downtown Seattle this summer.

"I work in downtown Seattle and there are protests all the time in the past couple months. You go outside and they'll be a protest or a public speaker and I love to see that."

With two years remaining on campus, Shanklin expects to continue to positively impact PLU through his involvement as a football student-athlete, Beyond Pacific member, BSU member, and advocate for non-profits.