Visionary Community Fellowship Award
The Visionary Community Fellowship from the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and Liberal Arts Engagement Hub (The Hub) is designed to invite greater and more substantive dialogue between community leaders, artists, activists, and surrounding community. The program provides a platform for community members to lead the University in identifying and prioritizing programming and research around themes of central importance. Fellows receive $10,000 and spend a year in residency at the IAS to pursue research and develop community programming in collaboration with the IAS and The Hub.
Arianna Genis is a seasoned organizer and strategist with a decade of experience in movement building and politics. Her work has driven equity and systemic change through organizations like Mijente, re:power, and TakeAction Minnesota. Arianna played a pivotal role in securing paid sick time for thousands of Minneapolis workers, leading campaigns to elect progressive candidates of color, and overseeing North Carolina’s largest Latino voter mobilization effort in 2020. Her leadership focuses on empowering working-class communities through grassroots organizing, political campaigns, and strategic narratives. Previously, as Organizer-In-Residence and Research Scholar at the P3 Lab at Johns Hopkins University, she worked on developing an initiative aimed at elevating Latinx political participation to foster a more just, multiracial democracy. In August 2024, she founded The Movida Initiative: A Democracy Lab for Latinos.
While a Visionary Community Fellow, Genis will pursue a project titled, “Beyond Voting Machines: Unleashing Latino Agency for a More Equitable Democracy.” Throughout the fellowship, Genis will work with Jessica Lopez-Lyman, Assistant Professor of Chicano & Latino Studies, as her faculty mentor.
Watch her TedTalk "Beyond Voting Machines: Unleashing Latino Agency for a More Equitable Democracy."
Independent journalist and multimedia producer Ralph L. Crowder III was selected as the first Community Fellow with the IAS and The Hub. As the program director of archive materials for The Frances E. Thompson Digital Library for Family Research, Crowder spent time over the course of his spring 2023 fellowship doing research and development for presenting collection materials. In May 2023, he launched Before the Mayflowers Landed, a three-day film and media showcase at the Northrop Best Buy Theater and the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub. The kickoff event featured a premier screening of "The Lost Negroes of North America," a silent film experience which examines northern family and community life in South Minneapolis circa 1945–1955.