From Posters to Plays

“At the heart of the Community Fellows Program is the belief that our community partners are co-educators,” said OCEL Director Elizabeth Cannon. “They invite students into their work, share their expertise, and challenge them to think critically about their role in advancing more just and equitable communities. We're proud to support partnerships with organizations, where students learn alongside community leaders while contributing to projects that strengthen our local community.”

This year’s Community Fellows will join members of the community groups they worked for at the program’s annual symposium on September 25. Here, we highlight just a few of the students taking advantage of this community-engaged learning experience this summer.

Sadia Rashid ’27, Celebrating the African Spirit (CAS) and Will Luber ’27, The Art Effect

The basement of St. John the Baptist Church was brimming with activity on a warm, rainy day in early July. Sadia Rashid ’27 and Will Luber ’27 were busy engaging with the high school students as Community Fellows of Celebrating the African Spirit and The Art Effect, respectively. Celebrating the African Spirit is a Poughkeepsie-based organization founded to commemorate the lives of enslaved Africans in the region. The Art Effect provides classes in the visual and media arts for children, teens, and young adults in the Poughkeepsie area, including a summer program in conjunction with the Poughkeepsie Board of Artistic Youth.

The high school students were gathering material on laptops for posters depicting various aspects of Black history and culture, which they presented at CAS’s annual Frederick Douglass Day observance on August 1. Topics for the posters ranged from the prominence of African American players in college and professional basketball and R&B music to police brutality and threats to freedom of speech.

One student, Sarah Hackett, a sophomore at Poughkeepsie High School, had chosen as her topic the 2014 abduction and presumed murder of Relisha Rudd, a 10-year-old African American child in Washington, D.C. Hackett said she believed the case exemplified the apparent indifference of many in power to the vulnerability of low-income young African Americans. She said she had learned how to create graphic art by enrolling in courses at The Art Effect.

Rashid and Luber said mentoring the high school students enrolled in the program had been rewarding. “I really wanted to learn more about what was happening in the local community,” said Rashid, a studio art major. “I wanted to apply what I had learned in my classes at Vassar to working with these young people.”

Luber, a psychological science major and studio art minor, said he was proud to witness the students’ presentations of their posters at the Frederick Douglass Day celebration. “I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work with these incredible students,” he said. “Leading up to Frederick Douglass Day, I felt the students had some mixed feelings about the project, so it was especially rewarding to see their excitement and pride as they stepped up to the podium to present their work. One thing I have taken away from this experience is the supportive nature and interconnectedness of the Poughkeepsie community. I’m grateful to have had the chance to be a small part of it.”

Rashid said they too were proud to have witnessed the students’ progression from the beginning of the project to Frederick Douglass Day. “They went from brainstorming topic ideas to confidently speaking about issues they felt strongly about,” they said.

Stephanie Hernandez ’28, End the New Jim Crow Action Network (ENJAN), and Norah Flinn ’27, Arlington Partners Against Racism (OnPAR)

Hernandez and Flinn served as mentors to local high school students enrolled in The Next Act, a theater and empowerment program co-founded by Associate Professor of Political Science Taneisha Means. Means is also a co-founder of Arlington Partners Against Racism (OnPAR), an organization founded by parents of students in the Arlington Central School District that advocates fairness in educational opportunities for students in the district. Hernandez worked for OnPAR, which collaborated with Next Act participants on the project. Flinn worked with End the New Jim Crow Action Network (ENJAN), an organization that fights bias in the local criminal justice system. ENJAN was involved in the project because some of the young people who participated had previous contact with the criminal justice system.

Throughout the program, the students collaborated on writing a play that reflected their observations and emotions, and heard presentations from members of the local community about their career paths. In addition to mentoring the students as they wrote and rehearsed their play, Hernandez and Flinn engaged in informal discussions about life on the Vassar campus and led them on tours of Vassar’s greenhouse, the Innovation Lab, and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center.

Hernandez, a political science major, said she had applied for the Community Fellows program because she wanted to have a direct impact on the community and make a difference in students’ lives through empathy and role-modeling. “This experience confirmed for me that I want to work with people and help others after I leave Vassar,” she said. “This is political work we’re doing.”

Flinn, also a political science major, enjoyed watching the students “come out of their shells,” she said. “Some barely spoke when the program began, and now they’re up on stage speaking in front of an audience. They are passionate about becoming a better version of themselves.”

Flinn added that she appreciated the practical aspect of her Community Fellows experience. “The programs in OCEL help you apply what you’ve learned at Vassar to situations in the real world.”

Means said she enjoyed watching Hernandez and Flinn forge meaningful connections with the young people enrolled in The Next Act. She said they were often able to engage in conversations with the students in the program in ways older adults could not. “It was gratifying,” she said, “to see the impact our Community Fellows students are making on the lives of people in our community.”

Other local organizations Community Fellows worked with this summer:

Community Matters 2 Inc. is a beacon of change and empowerment in Poughkeepsie, NY. Its mission is to cultivate communal growth and create a nurturing space for all, regardless of age, ethnicity, or religion.

Exodus Transitional Community’s mission is to provide supportive services for formerly incarcerated people in order to help them reintegrate into their communities thereby achieving social and economic well-being and breaking the cycle of recidivism.

DAY ONE Early Learning Community is a nonprofit located in the city of Poughkeepsie. Its mission is to create the best learning opportunities for young children in New York State by providing state-of-the-art training for early childhood teachers. DAY ONE also provides programs that allow parents to access the necessary knowledge, resources, and respect to achieve their hopes for their children and families.

The Prisoners’ Brain Trust (PBT) is a collective led by directly impacted individuals working to dismantle systemic harms within the prison industrial complex.

MASS Design Group was founded on the understanding that architecture’s influence reaches beyond individual buildings. MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) believes that architecture has a critical role to play in supporting communities to confront history, shape new narratives, collectively heal, and project new possibilities for the future.

Dutchess Outreach’s mission is to provide healthy food and compassionate support, and to advocate for food security and social equity.