The artistic director of Urban Word NYC — a New York City program that provides platforms for critical literacy, youth development and leadership — will give a talk at Ithaca College on Tuesday, April 4. Mahogany Browne will present “Struggles & Achievements of Generation Z” at 6 p.m. in Klingenstein Lounge, Campus Center. Her talk is free and open to the public.
Founded in 1999 on the belief that teenagers can and must speak for themselves, Urban Word NYC presents literary arts education and youth development programs in the areas of creative writing, journalism, college prep, literature and hip-hop. The organization works directly with 25,000 teens per year, and has a vigorous community educator training series which links inquiry-based classroom practices with the most progressive academic trends in student-centered pedagogy.
Browne plays a number of vital roles with Urban Word NYC, including serving as poet-in-residence, developing and managing the Youth Leadership Board, coaching the NYC Youth Poetry Slam Team and serving as a master teaching artist and mentor.
Browne is also a Cave Canem Fellow who facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country, and is the host and curator of the Friday Night Slam Series at the Nuyorican Poets Café. She is the author of several books, has released five recordings, had her poems included in a number of literary journals, and is co-editor of forthcoming anthology “The Break Beat Poets: Black Girl Magic.”
Her presentation is sponsored by the Ithaca College Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity (CSCRE) Discussion Series, whose theme this year is “Imminent Generation: Coming of Age in a Time of Uncertainty.” For more information, visit www.ithaca.edu/cscre.