The African Diaspora Consortium (ADC), in partnership with the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Urban & Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, will be hosting a new online student exchange program focused on the artistic and cultural experiences within the African diaspora. The program is open to students and emerging artists from four countries central to the African diaspora--Bermuda, Brazil, the U.K., and the U.S.--for participation.

The Michael Nettles African Diaspora Globalization Student and Artist Exchange is a semester-long online program launching on January 18. Leading the team of instructors are ADC master artists Delfeayo Marsalis, trombonist and composer, and Katrina Andry, visual artist and printmaker.

“The African Diaspora is a story so central to an understanding of history and cultures, and to an understanding of human experiences, that it just has to be examined and told,” said ADC founder and President Dr. Kassie Freeman. “The Nettles Globalization Student and Artist Exchange recognizes that the arts were and continue to be a critically important part of that story.”

Further illuminating the relevance of the program in today’s world, the statement released for the event states; “Hundreds of years ago, lacking a shared language, enslaved Africans gathered on Sundays in New Orleans’ Congo Square to communicate through music, dance, and art. Today the arts powerfully link the African Diaspora and the 1.2 billion African-descended people dispersed around the globe who, collectively, would constitute the world’s third-largest nation."

As part of the program, students from the four countries will share their own experiences and comparative knowledge regarding the Diaspora as well as focus on artistic engagement, community development, and service-learning projects. 

Speaking at the program are Erica N. Walker, Director, Institute for Urban & Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia University; Paula A. Cox, ADC Chair and former Bermuda Premier; David Lammy, British Member of Parliament; José Vicente, President of Zumbi dos Palmares University, Brazil’s only Black university; Duranda Greene, President of Bermuda College; and Michael Nettles, ADC Vice-Chair and Senior Vice President at ETS.

Registration for the program is still open and can be accessed through this link.