Using her research and curriculum design skills, Victoria LaFave (Theatre Arts) will develop assessments of student engagement for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and a dance cultural history curriculum that highlights the relationship between classical ballet and other prominent dance forms and explores social issues of race and coloniality.

• Dancers as Engaged Citizens: Building a Decolonial Ballet Curriculum
• Learning the Language: Conversations Between Dance and the Academy

For CO/LAB Theater Group, Alison Mahoney (Theatre Arts) will utilize her professional experience and doctoral research in disability and the arts to create a community-informed program evaluation, reimagine their Actor Log, and complete an accessibility audit of their classroom tools and practices.

• Uplifting Neurodiverse Perspectives
• Working Towards an Ethos of Institutional Care at CO/LAB Theater Group

Taylor Waits (English) will support the research, development, and implementation of trainings related to current curriculum and instruction trends in K-12 education and anti-racism and use her digital storytelling and social media experience to develop educational collateral with Single Seed Enrichment School.

• Serving Students and Educators with Single Seed
• The Fruit that a Single Seed Bears

Oscar Zapata Garcia (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) will utilize his editorial experience and language skills to work with Casa San Jose by supporting their editorial and communications strategy, developing a social media marketing plan, re-designing and optimizing their newsletter, and translating documents.

• Brown Futures: Helping Latinxs To Survive And To Thrive In The Pittsburgh Area
• Latinx Community Building in Pittsburgh

Summer 2020

See the summer 2020 cohort flyer (PDF).

Charles Athanasopoulos (Communication) is working with Monument Lab to expand an on-going performance art project - Sweet Chariot, an interactive video scavenger hunt of African American history, conceptualized and directed by artist Marisa Williamson - and to expand their archival database of public art works funded by Confederate legacy groups.

• Iconography and (Anti-)Black Rhetoric(s): Understanding Public Art
• Monument Lab and Monumental Learning: Iconography and Public Art

Eve Barden (Film & Media Studies (Slavic concentration))’s Monument Lab project is to produce educational videos on historical topics for Dr. Patricia Eunji Kim’s Queens Who Rule (QWR), an emerging multi-media public history platform that brings life to the art, stories, and political experiences of women throughout history.

• Histories on Public Display: Queens and Protests
• A Rare Glimpse into a New Field and Old Histories

At the Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth project in UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Dominique Branson (Linguistics) is analyzing and synthesizing data related to Black girls' experiences and involvement with the juvenile justice system in Allegheny County to develop an equity report that informs Pittsburgh stakeholders about ways to better serve at-risk Black girls in the city.

• Anti-Racist Yoga and Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth
• Language and Black Girls’ Experience in the Juvenile Justice System

With RefocusED, Inc., Nelson Felipe Castañeda Rojas (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is supporting the Voices Against Violence Summer Camp and building research on trauma-sensitive youth educational models, practices, curriculum, and programs.

• Uplifting Voices against Violence
• Understanding Curricula in a Time of Global Crisis

As a Remote Volunteer Citizenship Class Translator & Teaching Assistant with the Catholic Charities of Los Angeles’ Citizenship Education Program, Darrelstan Ferguson (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is helping non-English speakers prepare for the English test/interview that is necessary for obtaining permanent U.S. citizenship.

• Preparing New Citizens
• Civics, Culture, and Language: Supporting Immigrants through the Citizenship Process

Treviene Harris (English) is using her experience in advocacy, research, and community involvement to provide Fresh Spirit Wellness for Women, a domestic violence counseling agency, with administrative assistance in database management, grant research, and grant writing.

• A Fresh Spirit for Domestic Violence Advocacy
• Grant Writing to Make a Difference: Helping in the Fight Against Domestic Violence

Kimberly Hoover (English) is supporting the research Awaken Pittsburgh conducts on their mindfulness programming in three areas: Children/Youth Programming (social and emotional regulation); Implicit Bias Awareness and Dismantling; and Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Practices/Delivery.

• Measuring the Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training
• Thinking through the Complexities of Mindfulness and Meditation

At Monument Lab, Janina Lopez (History of Art and Architecture) is assisting artist Michelle Angela Ortiz with her Hemispheric Latinx Artist Research project; providing research for an in-progress database about monuments along or upon the U.S./Mexico border; and developing projects with the information acquired for the database.

• Along the U.S.-Mexico Border: Understanding Monuments
• Moving Across Time, Medium, and Space: My Work with Monument Lab

Patoimbasba Nikiema (French) is providing individual and small group support to students at ARYSE, a student-centered organization that supports immigrant and refugee youth in becoming engaged, confident, and celebrated members of the community.

• Eyes on the PRYSE: Social Integration for Refugee and Immigrant Youth
• Reimagining the Experiences of Refugees and Immigrants

Sean Nonnenmacher (Linguistics) is creating a StoryBank, a database of recorded personal narratives from Phoenix lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) youth, among others, for GLSEN Phoenix, which will pilot “data” in the form of approximately 25-30 personal narratives.

• Telling LGBTQ Stories with GLSEN
• A StoryBank for GLSEN

Brenda Sólkez (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is following the methodology of Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers to teach a summer camp for Casa San Jose, a non-profit organization based in Pittsburgh that supports and advocates for the integration and self-sufficiency of Latinx and Hispanic communities.

• Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers
• The Language of Bonding: Teaching and Learning from Latinx Youth

For the Walpole Children’s Theatre, Christopher Staley (Theatre Arts) is doing archival and historical work to organize the group’s 50-year history in a clear, schematic form; researching grant opportunities; and assisting with their summer shows over Zoom.

• My Time with the Walpole Children’s Theatre
• Learning to Forget What We Think We Know

Mathew Tembo (Music) is collaborating with the Bloggers of Zambia, a civic organization that explores the use of virtual platforms as alternative spaces in which Zambia’s citizenry can participate in the democratic process of the country, to engage interlocutors (particularly women in the music industry), edit blog posts, enhance content, and facilitate capacity building of the organization.

• Blogging in Zambia
• Immersing in Remote Ethnomusicology

In order to help improve Radical Monarchs’ administrative efficiency, Taylor Waits (English) will be working on grant tracking, database management, and communications for the non-profit organization that serves as an alternative to the Scout movement for girls of color, aged 8-13.

• #BlackGirlMagic: Working with Radical Monarchs
• Black Joy as a Liberation and Healing Praxis