JCL News
Take a look below at the exciting things that are happening within our department!
SMC Shares Plans for Fall 2020
We are so proud of our graduating students!
Newsletter!
Take a look at the Spring Newsletter to get a glimpse of what we have been up to!
Take a look here!
Program Spotlight!
AACU’s Peer Review Spotlights Justice, Community and Leadership Program!
Take a look at the publication!
Check it out!
Our very own Dr. Tammy Spencer talking about SMC, TFT, and teaching as "an act of social justice"!
Click here!
Bell Hooks Award
Paulo Freire Senior Thesis Award
Ella Baker (TFT) Award
The “World House” JCL Spirit Award
Community Engagement Partner Award: Legacy Garden
Bell Hooks is an American social activist, feminist and author. She was born on September 25, 1952. bell hooks examines the multiple networks that connect gender, race, and class. She examines systematic oppression with the goal of a liberatory politics. hooks argues for the transformative power of education, which utilizes transgressive ways to create a more enfranchised and engaged body of students and teachers. The highest honor awarded by the JCL Program, will be announced at graduation.
The bell hooks department award is based on college standards for GPA and additional academic and service criteria decided by the department.
Congratulations to our Award Recipient for 2020, Kodie McGinley!
Kodie McGinley, thesis titled "From the Margins to Center Stage:The Experiences of Students from Marginalized Communities in Artistic Practice".
Kodie’s academic work, liberatory commitments, and related leadership in and beyond our classes and wider campus are exemplarily aligned with bell hook’s intersectional feminist approach to countering oppression through critically transgressive theory, education and action. One example of this alignment is Kodie’s award-winning JCL thesis, where they examined the experiences of LGBTQIA+ students on our campus, particularly the ways in which these minoritized and marginalized students’ artistic practices are fundamental to their critical consciousness development, and to their making greatly needed space for their humanity and epistemic privilege on our campus. Kodie’s thesis was awarded a Spectrum Award by the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum. As a result, an excerpt of Kodie’s thesis will be published in SMC’s The Spectrum Journal in Spring.This coming Fall 2020, Kodie will begin a new journey as a law school student at Golden Gate University School of Law, focusing on public interest law. Kodie will represent JCL extraordinarily during law school and beyond.They are a truly exceptional human, artist, social justice thinker and leader.
Paulo Freire (September 19, 1921 - May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator who wrote one of the most important books in the field of education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire’s writings has served as the basis for social justice education around the world challenging asymmetrical relations of power and privilege. Freire viewed the processes of education and research similarly in that they can either function as instruments used to “facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity” or they can serve as the practices of freedom where human beings creatively and critically participate in transforming the world.
The Paulo Freire Senior Thesis Award is awarded to a graduating senior(s) in recognition of a research project that most exemplifies the Freirean values of action, reflection, and humanization.
Congratulations to our Award Recipient for 2020, Arianna Delillo!
Arianna Delillo, Thesis Titled: “Getting to the Meat of It: Individuals’ Diets and Their Ongoing Understanding of Climate Change”
Arianna’s thesis, and her academic contributions to the JCL program reflect a profound commitment to both theory and practice in service of realizing a more just world. Her thesis tackles a timely and complex question “how college students in a predominantly white liberal arts college in the U.S. make sense of their dietary choices and eating habits in relationship to their ongoing understanding of increasing climate change.” Arianna’s journey to this research question is reflective of the ways in which she continuously interrogates “simple truths,” such as that meat-free diets are desirable and accessible to all. In writing this thesis, she engaged a broad diversity of literature, synthesizing key ideas and applying two theoretical frameworks, cognition theory and moral disengagement theory that posit that people will shape their perceptions of the world to fit with their values and beliefs to reduce dissonance. Arianna presents a compelling argument, revealing that although people are relatively aware of the impact that their food has on the environment, they act incongruently to their beliefs and justify their actions to reduce guilt. Like a true JCL major, she offers a plan for action, emphasizing the importance of culturally-responsive education in addressing the environmental impacts of meat consumption. Her thesis was awarded an Honorable Mention by the Spectrum Awards committee at the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum at SMC.
Ella Baker (December 13, 1903-December 13, 1986) was a leader of many civil rights organizations during the mid-20th century. Baker’s nickname was “Fundi,” which is a Swahili word meaning a person who teaches a craft to the next generation. Her activism has informed the ideas of “participatory democracy,” which in its three aspects: 1) centers the perspectives of the marginalized, 2) nurtures group centered leadership, and 3) values civic action. She believed that “oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it.”
The Ella Baker Award is given to the senior who demonstrates the values of “participatory democracy” through their placements, service, and academic performance, as reviewed by the program.
Congratulations to our Award Recipients for 2020,
Jazlyn Sakaniwa, Thesis Titled: “Centralizing The Experience of Pre-Service Teachers of Color”
Frank Vasgerdsian
Jazlyn (Jazzy) Sakaniwa's time within the JCL program has advanced the legacy of Ella Baker and her ideas of “participatory democracy.” As a first generation college student, we had the opportunity to witness Jazzy transform before our eyes as she would gain the vocabulary to name and understand her multifaceted identity as an immigrant, multiracial, woman of color - naming these interlocking identities as a valuable source of strength and empowerment. She has committed herself to the lifelong process of struggling for equity and justice in her career as an educator. We are confident that Jazzy will support a new generation of youth to find power in their own stories and lived experiences. Furthermore, we are hopeful that she will continue to model, just as she has done in the classes she’s taken at Saint Mary’s College, the qualities of humility, sincerity, and courage in her role as an educator. For all of these qualities are needed, now more than ever, in the daunting task of teaching to change the world.
Frank Vasgerdsian has the distinction of being the very first student in the Single-Subject 4+1. In fact, he joined the program before the minor was in place. Frank has always wanted to be a teacher, and as he completes his credential for high school math next year, he will be a transformative educator, centering equity and justice, and co-constructing a liberatory education model. In so many ways, Frank has been the epitome of TFT -- not only has he been a reflective and deep thinker, but he has advocated for his education, stood by his principles and values in all he does, and has always been ever ready to help students, faculty and the program excel. To meet his academic goals, he created a split major with math and JCL so he could get the best of both worlds -- a social justice centered foundation combined with his passion for math. He has really been a part of JCL since his high school days, when he first started inquiring about being a teacher -- and while he graduates this year, he will ALWAYS be JCL and continue to represent the very best of us.
From the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “World House” represents the concept and values of our JCL Spirit Award which is given to the JCL graduating senior who best exemplifies the values of the JCL Program and College, through their work in communities, the classroom, and as active citizens. For the “World House” JCL Spirit Award, the program would like students to nominate a fellow classmate. An individual or group can nominate a student, and we will also accept self-nominations. The JCL faculty will review nominations and select an honoree based on the nominations from our students.
Congratulations to our Award Recipients for 2020, Cora Campbell!
Cora Campbell, thesis titled: “The Power of Immersions in Shaping Pre-service Teachers into Antiracist Educators”.
Across her coursework, leadership roles and community-related experiences at SMC, Cora has demonstrated her commitment to being a passionate anti-racist educator who is deeply self-reflective and who is a critical ally to minoritized and marginalized communities. Cora has a fierce, loving and humble heart, and she isn’t afraid to ask hard critical questions of herself and others in her life-long journey to make our world an equitable home for all. Cora’s JCL classmates nominated her for this award. In doing so, they recognize her as having greatly shaped their mutual learning and love for the Justice, Community, and Leadership Program, and as someone who exemplarily embodies our Program’s values.
Congratulations to Kelli Baram!
For the past 5 years, Kelli Barram has been an integral part of the JCL and SMC community. A regular community partner for JCL 10, JCL 130 and JCL 150, Kelli has hosted over 200 JCL students in the legacy garden, which she operates as its steward and manager. A Master Gardener and Garden Education Instructor, under her guidance, students have learnt about the importance of ecological stewardship, and the necessity of cultivating and caring for our common home. Kelli’s work with students goes over and beyond supervising their work, rather she is a co-educator who has shepherded many of our students to a-ha moments- where they develop empathy for the migrants who grow our food and learn to critique the throwaway cultures that we live in. Kelli is also at the heart of several sustainability initiatives on our campus and beyond, particularly relating to environmental education and using the garden as a “living laboratory.” Beyond her work at SMC, she supports environmental education in Richmond and other parts of the East Bay through the work she did with Urban Tilth, and currently running the after school internship program called Plant to Plate (for High School Juniors and Seniors).