Our October Faculty spotlight is Dr. Imani M. Cheers from the School of Media and Public Affairs. Our Community-Engaged Scholar Emebte Atanaw sat down with Cheers to ask about her Scholarship of Engagement.
Dr. Cheers is a professor of Digital Storytelling in the School of Media and Public Affairs. This is her 6th year at the George Washington University. We wanted to know about how she incorporates service into her classes. Dr. Cheers explained her local and international work to us. “All of my courses are inspired by social justice and advocacy. I try to base the courses with local communities around the D.C. area, specifically the Shaw and Anacostia neighborhoods. I also include international focused advocacy in my courses. I’ve done activities such as beach clean-ups in Belize, working with local community leaders in Southeast D.C., and humanitarian work.”
We asked Dr. Cheers what advice she would give to professors and students at GW who want to do work in the community. She gave us some great insight. “Most people want to do good work but don’t have the connections or know where to do their service. We live in D.C. where there’s lots of community work to be done. We often neglect service in our own backyard. There’s organizations such as D.C. Central Kitchen who value their volunteers, and many public schools in D.C. eager for students to get involved. Overall, there’s much service to be done, and it’s only a couple blocks away.”
The Nashman Center is delighted to have Imani Cheers as a Nashman Affiliated Faculty member. To learn more about our Nashman Affiliated Faculty, click here. To learn more about Dr. Cheers’ research check out her new book “The Evolution of Black Women in Television: Mammies, Matriarchs and Mistresses” and her blogs at https://www.thecheersreport.com and https://www.blackwomenintv.com. You can see Dr. Cheers’ student research projects at the Symposium on Community-Engaged Scholarship Dec. 7th. Click here to RSVP for the event.
