Bard College Students Attend HBCU Democracy Day at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro as Part of Course on Student Voting

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—A group of Bard students, enrolled in a course titled Student Voting: Power, Politics and Race in the Fight for American Democracy, attended HBCU Democracy Day at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T) on Wednesday, October 16 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The course on student voting, which is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Open Society University Network (OSUN), is collaboratively taught by faculty from Bard College, North Carolina A&T, Prairie View A&M University, and Tuskegee University. Students meet virtually every week to discuss issues in the course, including case studies which explore histories of student voting at each institution. Students from each of the campuses attended the HBCU Democracy Day conference.

The conference featured a panel with five of the professors who teach the course: Jelani Favors (North Carolina A&T) who organized Democracy Day and heads North Carolina A&T’s Center of Excellence for Social Justice; Jonathan Becker (Bard College); Melanye Price (Prairie View A&M University); Lisa Bratton (Tuskegee University); and Yael Bromberg, who is a senior fellow at the Bard Center for Civic Engagement and a leading scholar on the history of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

The conference also included an array of distinguished speakers, including: David Dennis Sr., author and civil rights movement veteran; Martha Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history and director of graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University; and Hasan Kwame Jeffries, associate professor of history at Ohio State University.

North Carolina A&T Henry E. Frye Distinguished Professor of History Jelani Favors said: “It was great to see the inaugural HBCU Democracy Day come into fruition at North Carolina A&T State University and to have visiting students join us from Bard, Wesleyan, Tuskegee, Prairie View A&M, and High Point University. Black colleges have been critical incubators for idealism and civic engagement since their inceptions in 1837, and the purpose of this program was to lean into that tradition and to foster healthy discourse and dialogue that will inspire students to continue the fight in interrogating, defending, and expanding democracy for the next generation. We look forward to hosting this program again next year and hopefully encouraging HBCUs across the country to implement similar programming.”

Bard College Professor of Political Studies and Vice President for Academic Affairs Jonathan Becker said: “It was an incredible educational experience for Bard students to be able to meet and engage in lively discussions with professors and students from some of the nation’s leading HBCUs on critical issues facing the country on the eve of the presidential election. It was even more meaningful, because the conference was held at North Carolina A&T, the home of the A&T (Greensboro) Four and so many other distinguished figures from the civil rights movement.”

The attending Bard students expressed tremendous enthusiasm about their experience. “It was amazing to see faculty and students that were so connected to their local community and to witness their pride in the role of their institution in the fight for civil rights,” said Emily O’Rourke ’25, a senior majoring in anthropology who is pursuing a certificate in civic engagement. “It was incredibly meaningful to meet face-to-face with students from the other campuses and together to participate in these necessary and important conversations about the history and future of democracy.”

Panhavotey Chea ’28, a first-year student, said: “Everyone on campus at North Carolina A&T was very welcoming, and Democracy Day was extremely informative. As an international student, I found it particularly interesting because I had the opportunity to be exposed to different perspectives on issues of voting and democracy.”

Kay Bell ’26, a junior global and international studies major, said, “It was an amazing experience to be able to go to an HBCU, to be able collaborate with students from other schools like North Carolina A&T, Tuskegee, and Prairie View A&M, and to hear firsthand about their efforts to support voting and democracy. It makes me hopeful for the future of the country knowing that there are so many students involved in the fight for democracy.”

The student voting course includes both written and video-documentary case studies about each of the participating campuses. Seamus Heady, a digital media specialist at OSUN who directed short documentary films on each of the participating campuses for the course, said: “Democracy Day made tangible the legacy of HBCU students’ participation in the process of democracy and gave a glimmer of hope for the future.”

Masha Pankova, a graduate of Bard’s Center Human Rights and the Arts Master’s program who helped produce the documentary films, said: “It was incredibly fulfilling to see the illustrious campus of North Carolina A &T and to visit Greensboro’s International Civil Rights Museum, which exposed me to the history that changed the nation. It’s one thing to read about it and another thing to see it firsthand.”
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This event was last updated on 10-22-2024

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