Hometown: Philadelphia, Pa.

Program: Doctor of Educational Leadership

Previous Degree: Lockhaven University, BS – 2014; Arcadia University, MFA – 2018

Why did you choose your particular program at Arcadia?

Arcadia University created a safe space to explore. As a graduate student in the MFA program, I was able to grow as a poet and as a human. Choosing Arcadia University in pursuit of my Doctorate degree was a no-brainer after the warm embrace of the MFA program. Most importantly, the effort to remain a visible safe space for students who look like me is reason enough to take the road less traveled but traveled nonetheless. 

What do you hope to accomplish during your time here?

To date, the goal is to dream. The accomplishment in dreaming will be actualizing the wildest parts of me, uninterrupted and intentional. To be uninterrupted in all efforts of obtaining higher education with the highest regard for myself, but in honor of those who came before me. This clarity is what I’ve gained during my time at Arcadia University. I now know who I am in all spaces and whose I am at all times. I’ve learned to give back to myself through education—a pathway to liberation and freedom. 

What do you do when you’re not in class?

I sleep. I rest. I write and I sing. I sing at the top of my lungs like no one is listening, and I laugh past the cramps in my belly because it is freeing and a reminder that there is an opposite to pain. I eat and I move slowly. I notice small things and big things and not-so-big or small things. When I am not laboring, I rest. 

Anything else you’d like to share about yourself?

I’d like readers of this to know that dreaming is the salve to freedom and believing is the antidote. Believe in your wild dreams and do not tame your imagination. I am unlearning the process of keeping myself small in a very big world that would have me remain a speck of sand in time. What I now know is that I get to be the beach and the gulls and the droplets of water in the ocean. I get to be limitless, and so do you.