Welcoming Dr. Evans!

Friends and Fam,

In addition to successfully defending my dissertation last week, I'm also happy to announce I’ve just accepted an Assistant Professor position at University of South Carolina's College of Information and Communication (CIC) within The School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) focusing on Race and Media.

Though it will be difficult to leave my home of Chicago after all these years, I am hopeful for what looms in the future. (And you better believe I will be back during the summertime!)

Dissertation Findings:

I am hoping to turn my dissertation into a book project very soon.  However, I know most people aren't going to take the time to read a 300 page document so here's the most important details of my findings in 2 years of evaluating our in-school Hip-Hop Based Education program:

Implications for social work, youth work, and direct practice
Teaching Hip-Hop Artistic Practices can create:

1. learning opportunities that build on Black youth’s passions for local community issues.
   
2. an ethos of reciprocity with youth by showing Black youth they are cared for, valued, and heard.
   
3. a merger for formal academic opportunities with more welcoming settings of informal community youth media programs.

I've spent parts of the last five years just to get to this point and I believe I am likely one of the first Hip-Hop artists to sign to a major label and then engage in the world of academia as a PhD graduate.  I am really hopeful that my second act will be even more impactful than the first.  Even still, I also look forward to releasing new music REALLY SOON!

To get a learn more about my research, have me appear at an event, host a lecture for your organization or network, please contact me at naledge@u.northwestern.edu. 

Thank you all for your support over the last five years and I look forward to keep building.

Sincerely,
Jabari