Dear Colleagues, Griot Family and Friends,
As Fall Semester 2025 comes to an end and we move into winter, we wish everyone a restful month during our break. Over the fall, we have enjoyed engaging interactions in community gatherings, book and film group discussions, and brilliant student intern presentations. Please read the student blogs to hear more about their presentations at the CSSR Poster Plus session in November. We are happily losing one of our interns to graduation as Barbara Wankollie moves beyond Bucknell to pursue her aspirations. We thank her for organizing key aspects of our Spring Speaker Series 2026, which will unfold after her departure.
Following our hiatus from campus, we will return in January to a full schedule of Griot Institute events that stretch from February to early April. Our theme is both timely and critically important for its focus on youth perspectives and experiences. The theme, Youth from Africa and the Diasporas: Knowers, Innovators, Visionaries, and Everyday People, will be an opportunity to engage several well-respected scholars, artists, and advocates who have authored award-winning books, delivered well-received speeches, choreographed acclaimed performances, and organized impactful community action. It will also be an opportunity to hear from and engage the next generation of thinkers and creators. Each Wednesday in February and March (except March 11) at 4:30 p.m., speakers will engage the community on this theme through the lens of their own professional passion. On February 11, two panels of Bucknell alumni and students will share their knowledge of, innovations for, and vision of the world and their place in it. We invite students, staff, faculty, and community members to join us for these conversations. For a full list of events, please visit the updated calendar of events here.
Our Griot Institute Spring Series events will be preceded by two weeks (January 19-30) of thought-provoking and community building events centered on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision and mission. This year’s theme provides many points of engagement from academic to student leadership to civic responsibility. Organized by the MLK Week Committee and co-sponsored by the Vice President of Talent, Culture, and Human Resources, Dr. Nicole Whitehead and Vice President and Fritz Family Dean of Students, Maureen McGuinness, the MLK Week series of events provides a diverse array of humanist engagements that draw attention to the statement “The time is always right to do right.” Please visit the MLK Week page for a full list of events that are open to the community both on and off campus. The lecture series is generously supported by Bucknell’s ULC.
We expect Spring 2026 to be an exciting time for all of our student interns (some abroad and some in our office conducting research) and for life at The Griot Institute.
Wishing everyone a wonderful season of holidays with friends and family, and a happy New Year 2026!
Cymone Fourshey, Professor of History and International Relations and Director of The Griot Institute
Congratulations
Congratulations to
The Griot Institute’s graduating intern,
Barbara Wankollie!
Barbara began working at The Griot Institute in Fall 2022. She has given much time and attention to the Antigua Sugar Mills project. She has interviewed many Griot guests over the years and has contributed to Griot events, projects, and ideas in a multitude of ways. We will miss her greatly and are happy to announce her involvement, as an alumna, in the upcoming Griot Institute Student/Alumni Panel on February 11, which she helped organize. She is graduating with a degree in Political Science and plans to attend grad school in the Fall.
BEST WISHES, BARBARA!
The Griot Intern Blog
For insights, reactions and detailed information on past Griot Institute events, please read our intern-authored blogs throughout the academic year. The blogs also include many updates and reports on what is happening around campus in connection to Black lives and cultures.
Newest Blog Posts:
Afrolatinidades: Reflections from Dash Harris’ Docu-Series
Lewisburg Cemetery Research Blog
Let’s Talk Storytelling Series: Stories That Connect Us
“Blackness and Food Systems” Research Blog
Obeah Research Blog
“Voices of the Civil Rights Movement” Research Blog
Jesse’s End of the Semester Update!
Griot intern contributors: Jeremiah Charles ’27, Debra Gonkpah ’26, Lily Hebda ’27 (graduate student and editor), Grace Ifiegbu ’26, Holiness Kerandi ’26, Jesse Leon ’28, Da’Mirah Vinson ’26 and Barbara Wankollie ’25.
The Griot Institute MediaSpace Channel
Do you know that many of the Griot speaker lectures and projects with a video component are available on MediaSpace? Check out the available recordings! Anyone with Bucknell credentials can access The Griot Institute MediaSpace Channel and The Griot Institute Storytelling Project Channel.
Recent additions:
Mama C – Artist Talk and Demonstration
Let’s Talk – S01
Let’s Talk – S02
Elaine Turner Interview
Fred L. Davis Interview
Dr. Beverly Bond Interview
**Many thanks to the following for making these recordings possible: The Bucknell Music Department (Mama C Recording), Debra Gonkpah ’26 (Intern, Storytelling Project), Grace Ifiegbu ’26 (Intern, Civil Rights Project). Very special thanks to Kelly Finley (Residential Colleges Program Director) for sharing the Civil Rights interview materials with The Griot Institute!
News
The Griot Institute recently received a photo and a reproduction of a letter from Jackie Robinson’s visit to Bucknell in 1949. We appreciate the Chi Phi Fraternity sharing this treasure with us for display in The Griot Institute office. Photo Presented by Bucknell Chi Phi Alums Frank Wood ’62 and Harley Bennett.
The Griot Institute wants to express gratitude to community member Elayne Sobel for her generous donation of African art in memory of Allan D. Sobel. The art pieces, pictured below, can now be seen through The Griot Institute suite in Hildreth-Mirza. Photo Credit: Jean Marie Ngabonziza
Upcoming Events
The 2026 Griot Institute Spring Series
Select Wednesdays throughout the Spring Semester
Youth from Africa and the Diasporas: Knowers, Innovators, Visionaries and Everyday People
Youth from Africa and the Diasporas are knowers, innovators, visionaries, and everyday people, yet what opportunities are there in the twenty-first century for those coming of age in a world where pandemics and digital technologies are transforming the way we live our lives? African and Black Diaspora intellectuals such as Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Adichie, Claude Aké, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Buchi Emecheta, bell hooks, Marcus J. Moore, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and many others have provided deep insights into youth as creators of knowledge for new generations. In the words and actions of scholars and everyday people, it is clear that those coming of age struggle. Across eras it is hardly unique to struggle, and yet the challenges youth from Africa to the Diaspora are facing in the twenty-first century are particular. Through an examination of the visionary activism and knowledge production of youth in the past and present, this year’s theme allows our community to contemplate the futures Black youth aspire to and deserve to realize. We will be able to raise questions about the obstacles and opportunities that lie ahead.
Please see The Griot Institute Spring Series website or email griot@bucknell.edu for more details.
MLK Week 2026
January 19 – 30, 2026
The Time Is Always Right to Do Right
Bucknell University’s 2026 MLK Week theme, The Time Is Always Right to Do Right, underscores the enduring urgency of Dr. King’s call to ethical action. This phrase was used in his Commencement Address at Oberlin College on June 14, 1965, titled Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in which he argued against passively waiting for justice and emphasized the immediate imperative to stand for what is right. The 2026 theme aims to challenge our community to attend to King’s calls to reflect on and actively work toward a more just and equitable world at this moment in time, recognizing that inaction is never a neutral stance.
*Variations of these words appear in many of Dr. King’s other speeches and writings.
The time is always right to do right. (The Other America, Stanford, 1967)
The time is always ripe to do right. (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963)
Please see The MLK Week website or email mlkweek@bucknell.edu for more details.
West African Drumming Lessons
Select Mondays in the Spring Semester, 4:30 – 5:30
Hildreth-Mirza Great Room
We are pleased to continue West African drumming lessons in the Spring 2026 semester. The first lesson will be on Monday, February 2, 2026. This opportunity is free of charge and open to the Bucknell community, as well as the public! No experience is necessary and instruments are provided. Because we have a limited number of instruments, please register by emailing griot@bucknell.edu.
About the instructor: Urie Kline is a versatile percussionist active across Central Pennsylvania. He first began studying West African drumming — specifically the Jembe and Dunan tradition of the Mande — in 2015. His educational experiences include masterclasses under both Dr. Djo Bi (Ivory Coast) and M’bemba Bangoura (Guinea). He has taught Mande drumming during his World Drumming course at Lycoming College since 2018 and started instructing at The Griot Institute in 2022.
About the Griot
To check event dates, subscribe to the Griot Institute Public Event Calendar
Email: griot@bucknell.edu
Phone: 570-577-2123
Location: Hildreth-Mirza, 2nd Floor
Hours: Monday – Friday, 8:00am – 3:00pm or by appointment
Director: C. Cymone Fourshey | Programs Manager: Michelle Lauver
