New fellowship advances commitment to racial justice

Out of tragedy came opportunity when a fellowship for racial justice was created to honor a Binghamton University student who died unexpectedly last spring.

This semester, the new Fellowship for Racial Justice in honor of Dominic Davy has its first recipient: Jarvis Marlow-McCowin, a student in the College of Community and Public Affairs doctoral program in Community, Research and Action.

The fellowship gives Marlow-McCowin, assistant director of the Multicultural Center at SUNY Delhi, invaluable support to pursue his doctorate and advance his research analyzing the experiences of rural men of color, with a particular focus on rural Black men and their experiences persisting to and through higher education. The interdisciplinary focus of the Community, Research and Action program, its commitment to helping students create a better world and the opportunities to work alongside top faculty attracted him to Binghamton, he said.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I was wondering how I would make an impact. The program spoke to me in that way,” Marlow-McCowin said. “What stands out at Binghamton for me is the diversity among its scholarship, its teaching, its research opportunities, but also the focus of being community driven. The program really focuses on preparing scholars to be scholar activists but also to be engaged with your community, and to listen to that community and how that community drives the change.”

The well-rounded experience the program provides will prepare Marlow-McCowin to think broadly and achieve his long-term goal of becoming a senior diversity officer at a college campus or in the corporate world, he said.

“His project and his career will advance equity and inclusion in higher education and, in particular, his work will open broader academic pathways for Black men,” said Susan Strehle, interim director of the CCPA PhD program and distinguished service professor in English, general literature and rhetoric.

Growing up in the small, rural town of Goochland, Va., higher education provided access to another world, said Marlow-McCowin, a first-generation college student.

“The fact that someone saw something in me; my work; my commitment to racial justice, to social justice, to my research; that they are now providing me with this opportunity to have financial resources to continue my education without thinking about the stress about how I may pay for a doctorate — it gives me the reassurance that I can do this,” Marlow-McCowin said.

“I’m taking my love of lifelong learning, I’m taking my scholar activism, I’m taking my knowledge of social justice and equity and putting it to use by challenging myself through a rigorous doctoral program and contributing to the great, groundbreaking work that’s already happening and has happened with regard to social justice or human rights activism … and leaving a legacy so that someone can pick up the work that I’m doing and carry it even further.”