Alumni Stories

Alums Mojan Ahmadi, Gretchen Johnson and Daniel Lee recently met with IAS seniors share how they’ve utilized their degrees, navigated job searches, and found success.  IAS is grateful for their service of our alumni mentors, who provide an important perspective on the value of interdisciplinary education in the workforce.

Master of Arts in Cultural Studies alum Frances Lee ('18) published "Woker Than Thou: an experimental syllabus" for a ten-week course on critical activist culture. Frances makes it a free and accessible resource for educators, activists, and organizers to use and adapt to their community needs. The course facilitates open, theory-based discussion of modern aspects of leftist activist culture, including identity, call-outs, cultural appropriation, "wokeness", and ...

Recent graduate Sean La Marr (’18) will serve as the 2018-2019 WA Department of Veterans Affairs/AmeriCorps Vet Corps Navigator to UW Bothell.  The Vet Corps helps veterans and their families navigate Washington’s higher education and training programs as veterans adjust from military to college life. In 2010, La Marr enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and in 2011, reported to ..

By Natalie Singer (’16)

As a student who preceded me in the UW Bothell MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics, Talena Lachelle Queen was someone I heard about often during my time in the program but didn’t have the chance to meet until after we both had graduated. I was excited to interview Talena because to me, she represents the real-world successful example of how one can realize a practice and career in art-making and community leadership and advocacy. While writing poetry, teaching, and mothering, a juggle I also seek to balance, Talena has figured out how to activate the conversation around art, its purpose and potential, in her community. While she advances her own practice, she is driven by the motivation to make art a civic venture and the belief that communities need art to thrive. Here is an edited version of our interview ...

“I want to help minoritized students flourish and thrive in higher education. As a Cultural Studies student who wishes to go into Student Affairs, it is important for me to think of the best ways to serve and support diverse populations of students. I am very interested in using poetry as a way to cope, to heal, to create communities, and to make meaning. Being accepted into a university and going to class is not enough to help students succeed in college. All students are knowledge creators, and poetry is just one of the ways in which minoritized students can resist the restrictions of academic institutions.” ...