The following students, alumni, and faculty of the Goddard Undergraduate program shared these exciting accomplishments -being invited to speak publicly about issues close to their hearts.
Melanie Goodman Dante (IBA ’03, MA HAS ’06) was an invited speaker on May 8th at Philadelphia SEXx Interactive. Melanie’s talk was entitled, “The Romance of Erotic Labor: Intimacy & Commercial Sexuality.”
Hip-hop artist and educator James “SoSoon” Gantt (IBA ‘15) was the invited commencement speaker at City-as-School in New York City. James was awarded City-As-School’s Outstanding Mentor Award for his work with students at the Door. Stand and Pose! (Watch the video and you’ll understand!)
Can’t resist including this new portrait of James “SoSoon,” as taken by fellow UGP student Matt Hogan at the Spring 2015 UGP2 residency.
Nikhil Goyal (IBA ‘18) was an invited presenter at the 2015 LEGO Ideas Conference held in Denmark this April. Nikhil’s talk, “What We Do to Children,” covers the history of progressive and alternative education and how we can best support children’s learning. At the age of 19, Nikhil is hard at work on a book about democratic education, the maker movement, and how children learn. His book will be published by Doubleday/Random House.
This spring, Rachel Holmes (IBA ’15) presented her senior study about trauma, silence, resilience and storytelling at Bridges, a New Hampshire nonprofit that serves women/families victims of sexual/domestic abuse. After the presentation, the executive director of Bridges asked Rachel to be the keynote for their annual fundraiser. On May 8th, Rachel delivered a powerful keynote. Rachel is now a student in the Transformative Language Arts-MA program at the Goddard Graduate Institute.
Synnika Lofton (IBA, ’04, MFAW ’06) was invited to speak and read at Mission College in Santa Clara, California, as part of their Visiting African-American Writers Series.
Herukhuti Williams was an invited panelist at the BECAUSE Conference, a national conference of bisexuals, in Minneapolis and a member of a delegation of bisexual activists at an LGBTQ people of color public policy forum at the White House. Herukhuti’s anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men is a finalist in the non-fiction category of the Lamdba Literary Awards and the anthology, non-fiction and writer of the year categories of the Bisexual Book Awards. Mark your calendars for readings in Berkeley, CA (May 18th) and Los Angeles, CA (June 29th). Herukhuti will also be participating in the Global Pride Summit as a presenter June 1-5.
