Black in Your Faculty 2018/2019

We are back with our second annual Black in Your Faculty! We ended Black History Month with a bang and held our exhibit which featured students’ work, on the 28th of February in the Student Learning Centre (SLC).

This year brought a great mix of different works that students are proud of. Thank you to those who have submitted their pieces, also describing their experience in their faculty and the importance of what they have shared. Enjoy the amazing talent of these Black Ryerson students and alumni below!

PHOTO-2019-02-26-12-55-36

 



 

 

Name: Kiara Rudder

Faculty: Faculty of Communication and Design

Program: Journalism

Year: 1

Story Day 3 Rudder – denee rudder

 

How has your experience been in your faculty? 

At the start of my program I experienced feelings of doubt of whether or not I was good enough or qualified. I found myself comparing myself to other students in my class. The adjustment to post secondary, was a challenge for me. But overtime I realized, I had to work harder and remember why I am in school. Thinking about where I can be in the future, always keeps me motivated.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This piece is important to me because I received a good mark on it after being disappointed with my prior marks. At the start of my studies, I was beginning to feel discouraged because of the low marks that I was receiving. However, after a long night and determination and writing about topics that I am more interested in, I was able to produce my best work. Overall, this piece represents my growth as a journalist in my program.

Name: Denzel Edwards

Faculty: Engineering and Architectural Design

Program: Computer Engineering

Year: 3

sad

 

How has your experience been in your faculty? 

In my faculty there’s not a lot of black people, so it’s strange go from a culture you know to be surround by a culture you’re not as familiar with.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

It shows my capability in learning a new art form.

 


 

 

Name: Queen Kukoyi

Faculty: Community Services

Program: Social Work

Year: 3

SMAI TAWI

 

How has your experience been in your faculty? 

A survivor of physical and sexual abuse, growing up in a USA (Spfld, Mass) dealing with racist teachers and a neighborhood plagued with gang and gun violence. I have been struggling/surviving through with Mental health crisis off and on for the past 20 years some what intact. In 2017/18 I was a pregnant new wife and a mother of a 12 year old girl; working as a Provincial youth outreach worker and in school full time. It has been a few years since I have had a breakdown. Due to multiple personal issues physical and emotional (Last year I began to mourn miscarriage and then loss my employment), I have been struggling with my mental health over the past year and I finally had a break down in April. Regardless if I was under extreme stress, taking care of others well being and providing support has always been something I’ve felt called to do but I forgot to take care of me. Taking time to recharge was never ideal and I found myself spending less time with friends and no longer doing meditation. I have never really been open about my struggle due of the stigma associated with “self-care” as a luxury.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

As a Black women we carry more than our share of the load whether that’s extra office housework, parenting, or other commitments. We don’t have time to take care of ourselves. We put everybody before ourselves. Several prominent thinkers have pointed out how activism, race, and self-care are connected. Audre Lorde once wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” So standing and saying that I matter and that I’m important and that taking care of myself is important is a radical act because so often, we’re expected to take care of everybody else. I had to remind my self of ways I can foster healing and mental well-being that is rooted in the idea that creative expression. I used art as therapy to communicate, overcome stress, and explore different aspects self-expression can helping me resolve my inner conflict lessen stress, and increase my self-awareness. This piece/animation is a reclamation of how I practice selfcare as I beg not only a artistic journey but also how meditation and exercise are vital to how I may begin to move threw the universe.

 


Name: Chantelle Leacock

Faculty: Community Services

Program: Child and Youth Care

Year: 3

IMG_9213 - Chantelle Leacock

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

My experience has been great overall. I love that diversity and being socially aware of our race, in addition to how it can affect us in the field is highly emphasized. I am constantly being taught about the inequalities that many minority groups face. As a result, this has impacted my mentality to be more culturally aware. I’ve noticed that there isn’t many professors that look like myself, but when I walk into a classroom and see a rare black professor it excites me. I hope that the inequality issues continue to be shared within my program, so we can all become amazing advocates for these groups while working in the field.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This piece represents a lot to me. Being a black student has always had its “ups and downs” in regards to always feeling like I am “standing out”. When I let out my natural hair, it draws attention to how different I am than the “normalized figure” of what beauty is, in addition to what it entails in our society. This piece is important because my natural hair is bold, beautiful and it can be used in many different styles to express who I am as a black female.

 

 


 

 

Name: Raymond Cadette

Faculty: Community Services

Program: Social Work

Year: 1

Puddles. They Aren’t That Deep – Raymond Raymond

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

To summarize my experience in my program I’d have to say it’s best represented in a comment made to me by a co-worker. “You’re not white enough to be in Social Work.” In reference to how many times my classmates will misinterpret or ignore valid claims by the authors of our readings while my professor do nothing to correct them.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This piece represents the way many of my professors feel themselves to be the final authority on my life and the life of marginalized voices because they happen to have studied social work. This is important to be because I am always the person spoken down to and ignored within classes by my professors but forced to perform emotional labor and healing for classmates when professors fail to center other marginalized voices.

 

 

 


 

 

Name: Shiann Nias

Faculty: Communication and Design

Program: New Media

Year: 1

NoPressure_Colour - Shiann Nias

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

New Media has reminded me how much I love being in charge of my own projects and vision, which I prioritize. Everyday is a reminder that I have a lot to learn and that I am going to stand out. On top of being physically black, I understand that the narratives surrounding black people in media are not always a priority of the people around me. I am happy to say that I have not experienced any overt displays of racism from staff or students, however, I know that if I want to launch the projects the way I want to, I can’t be afraid to confuse people, and make my representation important.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This piece is the manifestation of my superpowers; I know for a fact that media makes the Earth spin and it plays a major role in everything we do. I also know that as a black person, I have the power, and in a sense, responsibility to make sure that a new narrative gets out, the old narrative changes, and people like myself feel represented. In other words, “No Pressure” represents my mission to use my powers for good.

 

 

 


 

 

Name: River-Jordan Allick

Faculty: Communication and Design

Program: IMA: Film Studies Certificate

Year: Chang School

Hypertext Transfer

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

Good, faculty has been supportive and accommodating. I’ve gain really essential tools that I have already begun to use in my professional field.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

The lack of black faculty. It’s important because I identify and I am a proud member of multiple marginalized communities (black, queer, Caribbean, femme, low-income), and see the same white male film cinephile instruct all my course can be very discouraging for my future career prospects. Whatever diverse DNA ryerson has going around must have skipped the IMA building.

 

 


 

 

Name: Kardeisha Provo

Faculty: Science

Program: Biology

Year: 1

The North Preston I know isn’t the one you’ve heard about

 

 

Why is this piece important to you?

It represents where I come from.

 

 


 

 

Name: Mandeq Hassan

Faculty: Arts

Program: History

Year: 3

Race Relations Through Film: “BlacKkKlansman” and the White Audience

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

Ryerson’s history program is seriously lacking in non-western representation course wise. The course selection is also very restrictive and makes it difficult to study what I’m truly interested in.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This is an essay I wrote on the film BlackKklansman and although the course wasn’t explicitly focused on Black history or film, I still had the opportunity to do an assignment on it.

 

 


 

 

Name: Kevan Davidson

Faculty: Arts

Program: Sociology

Year: 5

A brief Mourning 

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

My program has been an interesting ride, though we are sociology and very diverse in thinking, rarely do I see prof that look like me. I hope that the faculty becomes more diverse.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

My piece represents the pain that exist in my heart whenever I feel trapped in my skin.

 

 


 

 

Name: Lidia Abraha

Faculty: Communications and Design

Program: Journalism

Year: 4

Blackout Issue – Page 5

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

I organized the Blackout issue with Ruhama Dechassa who is a second year RTA. As media students, we rarely get the chance to share the Black experience through our work. The curriculum is very Eurocentric and doesn’t encourage Black representation. That’s why we took advantage of resources provided by The Eyeopener to go outside of our faculty and share the stories of the Black student experience on campus.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

Since this is the first Blackout issue, it represents the first platform for our stories to be told by a widely known student organization (The Eyeopener). Each of the writers had a personal connection to their stories, which shows the great things Black creators can achieve when given the platform. This issue also represents the shit we don’t get to talk about as Black folks in an anti-black institution. This includes our experiences as athletes, students, faculty, and mental health. To me, this issue represents a platform for us to air our shit out, and tell our stories.

 


 

 

Name:Adia Nesbeth

Faculty: Arts

Program: English

Year: 1

What is Black Identity?

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

Fortunately, in most of the courses in my program, there have been critiques of racism in literature as well as some analysis of works by people of colour. However, they only scratch the surface and it’s not always enough to just acknowledge problematic elements of Shakespeare and Conrad. There should be more options for people who are tired of just lamp-shading racism and moving on. What I feel is missing are more courses CENTRED around black literature, including works that go beyond race relations in North America.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This is a piece I wrote for my Intro to Non-Fiction class. I decided to interview someone with many intersections within the black community including queer, immigrant and female, because the diversity in experience interests me. This paper is just a small snippet of the conversation we had, mostly highlighting how her identity came to be based on cultural context. It’s important to me because I was given relative freedom to discuss what I wanted and I found I enjoyed the interviewing process. I would have provided the whole interview but it would have been way too long.

 

 


 

 

Name: Thaila Dixon-Eet

Faculty: Community Services

Program: Social Work

Year: Alumni

Youth Centring – COY – Thaila Dixon-Eeet

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

I have worked at Ryerson for 10 years participating in various research projects that center youth in care. Throughout my time working for these organizations i experienced tokenism, anti black racism as well as ageism. The irony was that these projects claimed to want to dismantled systems which marginalize and oppress youth in care/black youth yet they had no framework in which to actually work alongside former youth in care and black youth.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

I believe we need to challenge the way we engage and work with young people.

 

 


 

 

Name: Josh Lamers

Faculty: Community Services

Program: Social Work

Year: Graduate Program

(Never) A Time and (Always Out of) Place Excerpts

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

My experiences in FCS’ social work program has been quite isolating. As a Black student who is also a community organizer, there is such a divide/gap between what the program markets themselves as, and the anti-Black and oppressive environment they curate. There’s no space for Black radical thought and practice, and if there are those spaces it comes off the backs of particular individuals.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

The excerpts of poetry represent the inconclusive, un-foreclosed, and turmoil experiences of what it means to be a Black queer man who’s a community organizer, child welfare survivor, and one who ventures into the topics of love, healing, and Blackness.

 

 


 

 

Name: Hansel Igbavboa

Faculty: Ted Rogers School of Management

Program: Business Management

Year: 1

3 Life Hacks to Survive University and College Life In 2019

 

How has your experience been in your faculty?

It has been a long ride coming. I started off in the Engineering program were I felt isolated and lone. I experienced several challenges in my personal life that made my experience here unpleasant to say the least. I am happy I have found a network of black folks on campus who make up my community.

 

Why is this piece important to you?

This video is from my Youtube channel called Vlogoo and I talk about some of the important life lessons and tools I have developed and learned through my time here.