Three students tabbed to receive Rosa Parks Scholarships

From left to right are Ashley Portman, Marcelle Grant, and Sarah Offenbach.

Two seniors and a junior at SUNY Fredonia will receive Rosa Parks Scholarship Awards, which celebrate creative works that examine multiculturalism or cultural pluralism, at a ceremony Thursday, April 5, at 5 p.m., at the Juliet J. Rosch Recital Hall.

This year’s recipients and their respective award-winning entries are: Ashley Portman, a senior psychology major, East Windson, N.J., “Of Motherhood in America,” a poem; Sarah Offenbach, a senior English and sociology major, Olean, N.Y., “So What if We’ve had the Vote for 87 Years?,” an essay; and Marcelle Grant, a junior public relations major, New York City, “The Great Integrator,” a poem.

The competition, established at SUNY Fredonia in 1989, honors the memory of Rosa Parks, an African-American civil rights activist and seamstress who was christened the “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement” by Congress.

Students were encouraged to expose injustice, as Rosa Parks did a half-century ago, by writing about their fears, singing about suffering, revealing their pain through a painting, or expressing their feelings through any variety of media, said Michael Mendez, graduate assistant at the Center for Multicultural Affairs, the program sponsor. Entries were to be provocative and original, while possessing a measure of intellectual or emotional impact.

The three award recipients will perform their compositions at the program, which will be followed by a reception at Café G at the Williams Center. Each winner will also receive a cash prize of $350.