https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhtNKoJUMB8&feature=youtu.be

This video is looking at some perspectives by queer people of color at Vassar College. Centering the analytical framework around Change the Field Vassar Report Final that Sheltreese Mccoy completed in the fall of 2015. Using her analysis as a framework I interviewed other queer people of color to see what the mental effects of living in this specific context of oppression has created for the students and the types of resistance strategies they use to counter the oppression.

My project will examine eating anxieties on college campuses, specifically at a small school where eating spaces are hyper-social locations. I am looking at how eating amongst peers acts as a social and in some instances, anxiety producing activity for students who deal with eating anxieties and disorders. My primary focus is looking at how space influences the eating habits, practices and anxieties of students. 

I am hoping that this project will vocalize the universal yet unspoken anxieties that surround eating on this campus, and provide some sense of solidarity amongst students who are dealing with an unhealthy relationship to the ways in which they consume food.

Through interviews with Arlington restaurant owners, Vassar student and administrative staff, this video ethnography explores the complex power dynamics and town-gown imaginations between Arlington food businesses and different bodies of Vassar. How does power play out in this space? Could other configurations, such as hospitality and responsibility, thought and practiced plurally in relation to power and economic interest? How to live together, differently and collectively, in such a college-community space?

R.E.A.L. Skills Network is an afterschool program at the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. With the leadership of Tree Arrington, students from elementary schools are tutored and mentored by students from local middle and high schools and colleges, allowing for a long-term community of support to develop. Over time, students who go through the program tend to perform and behave better in school and graduate high school and attend college at significantly higher rates compared to the general school population.

In this video ethnography, I have analyzed the relationship between Vassar College and R.E.A.L. Skills in order to portray the complexities of the University-Community partnership, based on observations I made while participating in the organization as a College Fellow, and interviewing both permanent staff, Vassar employees, and an ex-alumna.

This ethnographic video analyzes my role in VELLOP’s Spanish Spelling Bee, and the effectiveness and impact of each in assisting English Language Learners in the Poughkeepsie School District— a “focus” district. It also aims to celebrate and encourage programs like this to continue to find new ways to assist ELL students.