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Kimberly Santana started at central New York’s only Spanish-language pre-professional theater, La Joven Guardia del Teatro Latino, when she was 5. When she stopped performing at age 12, Santana returned to her childhood theater, being the oldest among nine other cast members, including her younger brother.
“What brought me back was seeing my younger brother do what I did at a similar age, and that just...

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Subscribe to our newsletter here.Norma Ayala Ramirez, president of the Zeta Epsilon chapter of Lambda Theta Alpha and a senior at Syracuse University, experienced a tough transition attending the predominantly white institution after growing up in a Hispanic community. Her Latine sorority helped her regain confidence and reminded her she belonged.
“I now see other freshmen who might be in the same position I was in, and being that help...

Anthony Bleck, a Cayuga Community College student, drove 32 miles from Fulton, New York to the Syracuse University Art Museum. He traveled to the “‘Homeward to the Prairie I Come:’ Gordon Parks” for his class taught by Melissa Johnson, his art professor.
“We talk about what wasn’t being represented in art and what’s here,” Bleck said. “And now it’s here in a really big way, and that’s really impressive....

At Sims Hall at Syracuse University, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech in 1965. In 1969, dedicated students fought to establish the Department of African American Studies (AAS).

This year is the 45th anniversary of the department’s fruition. Today, it functions as an interdisciplinary academic unit offering a B.A. in African American Studies, an M.A. degree in Pan-African Studies and a minor in African American Studies.

The department’s hallways are adorned with history, from the achie

“We all scream for ice cream” has a whole new meaning for Southern students Brandon Foligno and Benjamin Foligno. In 2021, the twins, both sophomores majoring in business administration, created their own ice cream truck called Seaside Creamery.

“We go to the beach a lot. The other ice cream trucks are always prepackaged, broken and overpriced so we came up with an idea to start our own ice cream truck and keep the prices fair,” Brandon says.

The pair started off buying their own freezer to ho

From campus to the boxing ring

She wraps her hands, laces up her shoes and slips on her heavy gloves.

Prepared for her training session, she then steps into the ring to face a sparring opponent and starts her workout.

Three or four times a week Rodriguez makes the trip from her home in Waterbury to Springfield, Mass., nearly 56 miles away, and involving two hours of commuting. Her commitment to her new-found sport comes from a desire to learn all she can and to compete in boxing bouts.

Athle

Outside of the American Sign Language classes, there is a whole community of deaf and hard.of-hearing people whose culture can be spread. The ASL Club, founded in 2020 by current alum Meaghan Reilly, is dedicated to practicing signing and being more knowledgeable on the deaf community.

Jessica Komacki, a senior communication disorders major, was the club’s previous treasurer, and is currently the president of the ASL Club. She says she thinks the deaf/hard-of.hearing community is underrepresent