Muslim Student Advocate Rakibul Alam Strives to Create a  Better World for Underrepresented Students

Daniel Hyunbin Chung — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 18:04:08 +0000

Muslim Student Advocate Rakibul Alam Strives to Create a  Better World for Underrepresented Students Daniel Hyunbin Chung Fri, 02/10/2023 - 13:04

For Honors College student Rakibul Alam, creative writing was his gateway to advocacy. Rakibul Alam is a freshman in the Honors College majoring in business with a concentration in management and a minor in education. In 2021, when he was a senior at Westfield High School, he wrote a spur-of-the-moment poem titled “Utopia” about the struggles of Muslim Americans. "I just wrote it down because there were a lot of thoughts that I had and emotions that I was going through. And so, I just put it down onto a piece of paper."

A major catalyst for the poem was an incident of harassment that he witnessed his mother experience for wearing her religious headscarf. He recalls that as he was writing, “those images and emotions were coming through from that exact scene, and I was just putting it into words. There was no [defined] format.” Alam used the poem as an expression of his hope to change the world for the better. “It was just me writing and thinking, ‘what can I do about this as an 18-year-old?' I envisioned a future about peace and justice and respecting each other's values and differences.”

When Alam was assigned to write a piece for his high school dual enrollment English class, he decided to submit a revised version of "Utopia.” It caught the attention of his teacher at the time, who encouraged him to submit it to the Live Poets Society of New Jersey for publication. Several weeks later, he was astonished to learn that his poem had been selected to be published in their forthcoming book, The Spring Edition for Faith and Inspiration.

Outside of writing this poem, Alam enjoys academic writing assignments and research projects, which he has had ample opportunity to pursue through Honors College courses. He proclaims, “I don't know why, but I just love writing research essays! I think the process of getting a lot of different articles and putting them together to help with what you're trying to find through your research is beautiful.” He is currently taking HNRS 110: Principles of Research and Inquiry, a first-semester requirement for all first-year Honors College students. His research project is about how climate change and high soil salinity are affecting farmers in coastal Bangladesh. “I just put together my literature review and I absolutely love the process,” Alam says. He is also taking a section of HNRS 130 this semester, "The Immigrant Experience,” with Professor Mark Rudnicki. He enjoys that it is a course that delves into writings and conversations about the experiences of underrepresented groups in the United States.

Outside of the classroom, Alam is a member of the Muslim Student Association and the Bengali Patriot Association. Additionally, he is a Student Senator in the George Mason Student Government. As a Muslim American Student Senator, Alam is driven to advocate for measures to give other Muslim students at Mason a more accommodating experience. For example, he was one of the Student Senators that brought attention to the issue of lack of dining options for those with religious dietary restrictions. “As a Student Senator, my goal is to push to incorporate dining hall meals that are more inclusive. And I like that we now have Halal meat options even if it’s just one or two items. It may not be a lot, but just having that there now gives Muslim students the option to eat on campus.”

As a continuation in advocating for and supporting other students, Alam plans to pursue a master’s degree in education leadership in hopes of becoming a school principal. "I want to be an exemplary leader for students and young individuals and encourage them to develop and reach their full potential,” he explains. “As a school principal, I will be able to make a direct impact, create a safe and inclusive environment, and implement ideas that will promote individuals to build bridges within communities. That is my dream."

A web copy of Alam’s poem can be found at: https://whswatchdog.net/2955/uncategorized/senior-publishes-poem-about-anguish-afflicted-by-prejudice/

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poetry

creative writing

Honors College

Honors College student uses poetry to explore lives of enslaved people

johara10 — Thu, 09 May 2019 18:06:14 +0000

Honors College student uses poetry to explore lives of enslaved people johara10 Thu, 05/09/2019 - 14:06

On Wednesday, April 24th, students united through art at the “Mason Legacies: Listening to the Ancestors” event to highlight the lives of those enslaved by George Mason IV, the university’s namesake.

The event took place in the Johnson Center’s South Plaza and served as a continuation of the Enslaved Children of George Mason (ECGM) research. The ECGM project is a web-based exhibition that gives a glimpse of what life was like for African Americans at Mason’s Gunston Hall. The research has spawned numerous projects across campus, including a planned memorial in honor of those enslaved to be completed by 2021. The ECGM project is the culmination of multiple Honors College student contributions.

Honors College sophomore Madison Gaines is now one of these ambitious student researchers.

The idea to tell the stories of enslaved people through art began with Dr. Michael Nickens, better known as Doc Nix, and Dr. Wendi Manuel-Scott, who was one of the faculty advisors for the original research. While art may seem like an unusual approach to research, for Gaines, blending the two is valuable for understanding humanity’s emotional connections to historical and current issues.

“The arts make things accessible. Using those methods is what’s making research accessible,” said Gaines, who has conducted her own artistic research in the Honors College’s Multidisciplinary Research and Creative Projects Seminar.

Once Doc Nix and Dr. Manuel-Scott began putting their plan into action, they looked for students like Gaines who could bring their vision to life. The group of student performers at the Mason Legacies event was tasked with creating art to present for the event. Gaines, a Creative Writing major, chose poetry as her medium.

To prepare for what to include in her poem, titled “A Proper Education in IV Parts,” Gaines annotated documents and books pertaining to the ECGM project.

“I was looking for things that were forgettable,” said Gaines, explaining that people tend to erase the histories of enslaved people. Gaines made it a point to make one section of her poem just the names of some of the people enslaved at Gunston Hall, stating that she refuses to let herself forget these people and their stories.

Gaines used her poem as a lesson for her own personal history as well as the histories of these enslaved people. Gaines stated that she did not learn much of these narratives in her earlier education.

“I’m biracial, so this was an opportunity to delve into that side of my identity.”

Madison Gaines

“I’m claiming both sides of this [history]. My ancestors were literally going against each other,” Gaines continued, deliberately acknowledging and holding true to her biracial identity.

One goal that Gaines has for her poem and for the project’s impact on campus is to make people feel uncomfortable that they are motivated to address these important issues.

“Being complacent is unacceptable,” said Gaines, who summarized the project in her own terms with the last two lines of her poem:

“There is no mercy in a memory / There is no justice in the forgetting.”

Madison Gaines

For Gaines, the ECGM project breaks down the “false reality” that white supremacist and whitewashed understandings of history have created. She hopes that events like these keep the messages from the original research alive and get more people interested in learning the narratives of enslaved people.

Reporting by Zaria Talley. Photography by Leah Antler (coming soon).

poetry

Muslim Student Advocate Rakibul Alam Strives to Create a Better World for Underrepresented Students

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Honors College student uses poetry to explore lives of enslaved people

Muslim Student Advocate Rakibul Alam Strives to Create a  Better World for Underrepresented Students