Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Week

MLK 2021 - Distinguished Service Awards

Faculty/Staff: Yahayra Michel

Yahayra has graciously volunteered their time over the past two years to mentor first-generation students in the River Hawk Scholars Academy in various capacities. This is a significant time and energy commitment that has made a major impact on the students in our program and on all of us who collaborate on RHSA. She serves as part of the leadership team and mentors Peer Leaders, student mentors who guide RHSA first-year students, providing thoughtful insight and perspective as first-gen student from an immigrant background and a veteran of the U.S. military. Yahayra has plenty on her plate as a professor and devoted mother and still gives of themselves to first-gen students. She regularly speaks truth to power and advocates for justice and equity within our program and beyond. Fighting with quiet, steely fortitude for our students' experiences and identities to be honored. Furthermore, she creates opportunities for our first-generation student leaders to conduct research, supports first-year Criminal Justice majors as an RHSA Faculty Advocate, and serves on the advisory board for the Greeley Peace Scholar program. Yahayra seeks to provide equal education and opportunities to students who have been historically and systemically deprived of them.& Students in RHSA look to them as a role model for someone who has earned a position of power and uses that power to fight, every day, for justice in their teaching, research, and mentorship.

Student: Benedicta Agyemang-Brantuo

Benedicta has demonstrated leadership and has committed to social change, service and community engagement in many ways. Inspired by the quote of Martin Luther King, Jr. which states that " of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane", this nominee created a club called Advocates of Health Equity for Minorities which not only serve as a club, but a community for minorities to have meetings and events which will advocate for good health and sound mind for underrepresented populations. Recently, Benedicta hosted an event where she invited two physicians for a panel. These physicians talked about how it feels to be a minority in the health field and other tips on how to survive undergraduate school academically. She is also a Senator for Student Government, an LLC mentor, and participated in the difference maker challenge and attempted to provide transportation for pregnant women who are addicted to opioids in Lowell. Currently, Benedicta is an ambassador for the Kennedy College of Sciences where they answer questions that prospective students might have during an open house.

UMass Lowell Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Week

All videos held within this tab shows all previous collaborations that were done with our office.

Enjoy this video highlighting previous collaborations from 2017 that produced the art featured during our Annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Distinguished Service Awards Dinners!

This collaboration was from 2018: the 2018 MLK Awards, Refuge Lowell art project.

2019 was the year we had art collaborations that were put out on displays for attendees to look at during the event.

Watch our 2016 community collaboration with Murkland Elementary: Lenses of Civil Right: Intersections of Struggle and Progress.