ParKer Bryant is a Ph.D. student in the literacy education department in the School of Education. As a Blackqueer, non-traditional, doctoral student, ParKer is of a generation raised on the principles of Billie Holiday “God bless the child that’s got his own,” Black Christian emphasis, “faith without works is dead,” and the street poetics of Lauryn Hill, “how you gon’ win when you ain’t right within.” Born and groomed in Jacksonville, FL, ParKer carries no expectation that anything in this life should just be given to her. Therefore, ParKer acquires and evolves multidimensionally through acts of service and her commitment to love as a living practice. ParKer’s research is rooted in the mindbody liberation she found in words and storytelling as a young human. And as a Ph.D. student, ParKer investigates racialized and linguistically biased texts’ mediation on Black youths’ cognition.
Aren Burnside (he/him/his) is a third-year Ph.D. student in the anthropology department at the Maxwell School. After growing up locally, he obtained a B.A. in anthropology and a B.A. in philosophy from Syracuse University in 2020. He is interested in the way that space is made, both physically and socially, within the city of Syracuse and its surrounding townships, suburbs, and environments. Through the Lender Center Fellowship, he hopes to build a critical dialogue that examines, reevaluates and begins to deconstruct the ways that powerful institutions have militarized the city of Syracuse and employed new technologies to surveil, contain, and disenfranchise marginalized populations within the city. He is excited to work with this disciplinary team of incredible scholars to help think about and build a more inclusive, equitable, and just Syracuse.


