We are delighted to introduce you to a new member of our team, Dr. CheyOnna Sewell! CheyOnna joined us as our Assistant Director of Social Science Education. Trained as a criminologist from the University of Missouri—St. Louis, she is a Black Feminist Activist Academic. She applies an intersectional-lens to all things crime and victimization related including incident trends and the varied ways that we as a society respond to situations and individuals. She is most proud of her involvement in community organizations and a practical study she conducted for the NAACP. She is thrilled to be working with MASP and sees an opportunity to dismantle and obstruct some systems of oppression through her work with students.
She is enjoying her first experience with PEAC as she becomes more familiar with the summer bridge program and is starting to build connections with our students. During the fall semester, she will also be teaching a class called Legal System Reform. The course description is as follows: Throughout the history of the criminal legal system, there have been various attempts at correcting the inequality rampant in the system. In this course, we will critically discuss reform/eradication efforts of the past, present, and what we may expect in the future. We will discuss things from mandatory minimum sentencing to prison abolition. Together we will define and use an intersectional-lens to align the course through an acknowledgement of systems of power and oppression.