We Engage in Scholarship
For the first time since 2020, a group of students led by Professor Mary Moran made their way to Howard University to engage in the 2023 Model African Union Simulation. Over three days, these students presented policy ideas and debated resolutions. Congratulations to Mary Moran on her final year at the Model AU and the award she received in recognition of her service.
We Advocate
ALST hosted advocate Meaza Gidey and journalist William Davison to discuss the crisis in Tigray with Professor Engda Hagos and Professor Brenda Sanya. The panel found moments of consensus and debate regarding the crisis and the international responses. This event brought light to a conflict that has lacked media coverage in the United States and provided a space for students to learn how they can advocate for the end of conflict in Ethiopia.
We Build Community
Every year, ALST hosts Caribbean Week in April as a way to bring together student groups and the academic departments that highlight the Caribbean. Part of this week is creating community through cultural activities. What better way to build community than through food and cooking? A group of students met in the ALANA kitchen this April to make a Puerto Rican meal with Yoli Vazquez and Professor Danny Barreto.
We Create
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name.
My name is my own, my own, my own.
- June Jordan from “Poem about My Rights”
Professor Dominique Hill’s WMST course, Women’s Lives in Text and Context: June Jordan, led a weeklong series of workshops titled Visualizing BlackQueer Pedagogies and Possibilities. The students created and presented collages surrounding the lives of queer, Black women with Professor Durell Callier.
We Learn From Our Environment
The Caribbean Week keynote this year was held in conjunction with ARTS and the exhibition of Deborah Jack’s work on the environment and colonization in the Caribbean.
“I think the most interesting thing about the talk was the meaning behind the videos. The sound is very high pitch. It makes you feel uncomfortable, just like the colonization of the Caribbean,” Sophomore Sarafina Lewis said.
We Jam!
Students joined Visiting Professor Scot Brown and iconic musician Fred Wesley for a Funky Good Time in ALANA this spring. Brown and Wesley discussed Wesley’s career as the band leader for James Brown and his life as a funk musician. Then, they broke out their instruments and jammed with student musicians. ALANA was alive with music and dance.