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Express yourself! Learn about Black poetic themes, styles, and techniques with artist & poet, Schnieder Predestin. All poetry created during this session will be showcased in the Libraries & Archives digital display during Poetry Month in April. All levels and writers' welcome.  

Workshop Host: Schnieder Predestin is a writer, poet, and fashion stylist. Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he utilized his love for books and the teachings of his parents to cultivate his writing style and his love for poetry. Schnieder works for a Japanese Made-to-Measure company called Kashiyama. In his free time, he's working on his first poetry book which is dedicated to his mother who passed away a few years ago. Schnieder is a lover of all art forms but he chose fashion and poetry to be the mediums he uses to express his love, pain, happiness, and his connection to all the things around him.

Feeling creative before the event? Please submit a poem to our Poetry Contest! Submissions close December 18, 2020 at 5pm. Contest winners will be notified of acceptance in late January 2021. All accepted poetry will be displayed on the Libraries' Digital Display! For further details or questions, please contact Dr. Fran L. Lassiter at flassite@mc3.edu or Amanda M. Leftwich at aleftwich@mc3.edu.

African American poetry, as part of the oral tradition, has served as examples of artistic expression and political protest for BlPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) for more than 400 years. Drawing on the history of African American identity and culture, the panelists will discuss the impact and relevance of specific poems that represent a pivotal moment in the history and memory of African Diasporic people. This event is designed to bring about cultural awareness of the Black experience, but also to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on diversity and inclusivity. Following the panel, the audience is encouraged to ask questions. 

Moderator: Amanda M. Leftwich, M.S.L.S., Student Success Librarian, MCCC

Panelists: 

Maurice A. “Tony” Davis, M.A., Counselor, MCCC 

Shawne Johnson, M.A., Professor of English, Community College of Philadelphia 

Fran L. Lassiter, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, MCCC 

Aisha Damali Lockridge, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, Saint Joseph’s University 

Fran L. Lassiter is an Associate Professor of English at Montgomery County Community College (MC3). She received her Ph.D. in English from Temple University, with a specialization in African American literature and early slave narratives. Her research and teaching focus broadly on questions of gendered and racialized identities in literature, and Africanisms as a theoretical approach for the reclamation of understudied slave narratives. In 2008, she became the first Faculty Diversity Fellow at MC3. She has presented papers at various national conferences on Black women writers; the rhetoric of nineteenth-century African American activists; and her paper entitled, “Journey to Equality: From Maria W. Stewart to Barack Obama,” received the Northeast Modern Language Association’s CAITY Caucus Prize in 2010. In addition, her paper “From Toasts to Raps: New Approaches for Teaching the Harlem Renaissance” published in Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture offers a cross-disciplinary approach for teaching literature of the period. Currently, she is completing a book on a free-Black family in Colonial-era Virginia. She is married and lives with her husband in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Date: February 19, 2021 at 12:30pm                         Link Pending 

Jamia Williams earned her Bachelor of Science in History from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport and earned her Master of Library Science from North Carolina Central University. Jamia is a Health Sciences Librarian at SUNY Brockport’s Drake Memorial Library. She serves as the liaison to the following academic programs, African & African-American Studies, Biology, Health Science/Healthcare Studies, McNair Program, and Nursing. Williams is the co-creator and co-host of the podcast LibVoices which amplifies the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who work in archives and libraries. Jamia founded the DiversityFellow blog which is a platform used to document her journey as a Black librarian.

Date: March 26, 2021 at 12:30pm                          Link Pending 

Felicia Grand-Pierre is a Project Manager for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (FRB) where she oversees strategy, process improvement, and information technology (IT) initiatives. She enjoys using her skills and experience to help business leaders plan and implement strategies that make their visions a reality. Prior to coming to the FRB, she spent several years in the health insurance industry supporting IT solution development as a software tester, business analyst, and project manager.  Felicia holds dual master's degrees in Information Science and Information Science and Technology from Drexel University.  She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Professional Business Analyst (PMI-PBA) by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as well as a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) by the Scrum Alliance.

Date: April 16, 2021 at 12:30pm                  Link Pending