Jemmott, featured in the documentary Personal Statement, about Brooklyn high school students who served as college guidance counselors, spoke after the film’s screening at TC’s Academic Festival in April, themed “Creating Pathways for All to Flourish.”

“Education is the human capacity to take a hand in our own flourishing,” said TC President Thomas Bailey, paraphrasing psychologist and TC alumnus Rollo May. “People turn to TC to increase equity, inclusion and opportunity.”

Academic Festival included a panel on newer Americans’ self-advocacy, student technology and research poster competitions, and the first Minority Postdoctoral Fellow Lecture.

In addition:

  • Outgoing Provost and Dean Thomas James was honored (see page 7).
  • Distinguished Alumni Awards were presented to Bruce Ballard (Ed.D. ’94), teacher and World Parkinson Congress blogger; Fanshen Cox (M.A. ’97), whose one-woman show, One Drop of Love, explores her family’s search for identity and justice; and Denny Taylor (Ed.D. ’81), creator of the field of family literacy.
  • Early Career Awards went to Tony Alleyne (M.A. ’10), founding director of Delaware College Scholars, which supports promising underserved students; Kim Baranowski (Ph.D. ’14), Associate Director of the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program, which conducts forensic psychological evaluations for U.S. asylum seekers; and Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams (Ed.D. ’12), Gettysburg College’s Director of Peace & Justice Studies and shaper of a new critical peace education.
  • Lisa Edstrom (Ed.D. ’18), a Barnard lecturer, won TC’s Shirley Chisholm Dissertation Award.
  • Joohee Son (Ed.D. ’13), Founding Director of the Center for Education & Technology and TC Korean Alumni Association President, received TC’s inaugural Alumni Award for Outstanding Service.
  • And prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba and TC doctoral candidate Ahram Park (M.Ed. ’19) were honored by TC’s Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.