It’s Worth Noting

The following is a compilation of recent achievements by current Friends students, faculty, and staff. To view more accomplishments by community members, follow Friends on Facebook and Instagram.

Dance teacher Barry Blumenfeld was recently elected President of the New York State Dance Education Association. NYSDEA is the state affiliate of the National Dance Education Organization. The Association serves as an advocate for dance education on the state level as well as providing professional development opportunities for dance educators in New York and administering the National Honor Society for Dance for students.

Friends Visiting Scholar Dr. Joshua Bennett has won a 2021 Whiting Award for poetry and nonfiction—joining a cohort of 10 emerging writers whose work shows early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. The Awards remain one of the most esteemed and largest monetary gifts to emerging writers. In addition, Dr. Bennett was recently named as one of two 2021 Guggenheim Fellows in American Literature. Friends Seminary is honored our students had the opportunity to work with him during the 2020-2021 school year through the School’s Visiting Scholar Program.

Photo by Radcliffe Roye

Dance teacher Adia Whitaker’s dance company, Àṣẹ Dance Theatre Collective, performed during BAM’s DanceAfrica Festival this past spring. The nation’s largest festival of African dance paid homage to the ancestral energy of Haiti with the theme Vwa zanset yo: y’ap pale, n’ap danse!, in Haitian Creole, or “Ancestral voices: they speak… we dance!” The virtual program of dance premieres drew inspiration from the lwa, spirits of Haitian Vodou, and brought together a community from near and far. The Collective also completed an Office Hours Residency at The REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in July 2021.

Dr. Christel Johnson, Modern and Classical Languages Department Chair, recently published “Domina-VirginMater-Trix: The Kaleidoscopic Identity of Woman.” The book examines the function of four stereotypes: dominavirgin-mater-trix as representations of marginality in Classical and Renaissance literature. The establishment and disintegration of identity reflected in these literatures, proves that neither Woman nor Subject can be defined in concrete, unchanging terms. “There are repeated patterns all around us,” Johnson writes, “those we can see and those we cannot. This text is part of a cyclical pattern of folding and unfolding that began during my time as a graduate student.

Rebecca Jakobsen Randall ’25 recently received regional recognition in the 2021 New York City Scholastic Awards, presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, for her piece, My Mind (pictured above). Her work was recognized by a panel of creative professionals as among the most outstanding work submitted among her peers. Since 1923, the Awards have recognized some of America’s most celebrated artists and writers while they were teenagers, including: Tschabalala Self, Stephen King, Kay WalkingStick, Charles White, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andy Warhol.

Following a yearlong exploration of African diasporic history, politics, literature, and art, Schomburg Junior Scholar Julian Reyes ’23 presented his work during a virtual summit in June. Using digital media, Reyes and his peers provided a glimpse at what African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is, what it’s not, and the importance of it in Black history and culture. During the summit, Reyes participated in a live discussion on AAVE with Dr. April Baker-Bell, a national leader in conversations on Black Language education. To view that discussion and to learn more about the The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, visit www.schomburgeducation.com/til-we-free-media.

Samara Friedman ’22 is particpating in a leadership program at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Academy training facility in Virginia this summer. Through the program, students focus on building leadership skills and develop critical thinking of contemporary law enforcement and issues facing young people today. This year, only two individuals from New York State and Canada were accepted into the competitive program.