Victoria Francois is an undergraduate student at The Pennsylvania State University majoring in Biobehavioral Health (B.S.) with a minor in Social Justice in Education. During her Fall 2021 semester, she will begin taking graduate courses for her accelerated Master in Public Health program. She is a Schreyer Honors Scholar, McNair Scholar, and Bunton-Waller Fellow who is interested in researching the experience of Black girls in the school-to-prison pipeline. Her paper "Examining the Risk and Protective Factors of School Behavioral Problems and the Consequences for Black Girls" was presented at the University of Maryland Virtual National Conference for McNair Scholars and Undergraduate Research and the Society for Research in Child Development Virtual Biennial Meeting in 2021. Currently, she is a research assistant in the Context and Development Lab as well as in the Center for Black Digital Research housed in the Penn State Libraries as part of the Social Media Committee.
"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time." -Angela Y. Davis
During Victoria's time as an AADHum Social Media Corps Fellow, she had the opportunity to listen to a poetry reading from Dr. Lillian-Yvonne Bertram called "Queen City Fractal". A few weeks later in the fellowship program, there was a workshop about accessibility and the need to be cognizant of how different audiences can enjoy digital projects. Moved by this conversation, Victoria decided to create an infographic of the poem that Dr. Bertram wrote so that those who are unable to hear the poetry can still follow along.
Victoria is passionate about uplifting the work of Black women, and that includes amplifying all of the genius that comes from poets and writers like Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, and other empowering voices. During Black History Month, there are a lot of resources floating around on social media so that people can take the time to appreciate the influence that Black people have on our culture in society. This next project could be an Instagram story or Instagram post that highlights some notable Black Feminist Poets, and would ideally be posted during Black History Month or Women's History Month. A transcript in the comments will be included in the post as well to make this post more accessible.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/22cf57f7-7d8e-49eb-a2f4-e2634cc6fac3/Black_Feminist_Poets_(1).mp4
The last project that Victoria worked on during the course of this fellowship is the creation of a GIF in light of the recent re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement. While the entire country witnessed the brutal murder of George Floyd on camera, it is no secret that Black men dominate the conversation surrounding police brutality. However, Black women are also victims to this unjust system. In an attempt to center the voices of Black women who were murdered by police, Victoria constructed a GIF that could be used in a Twitter thread, Pinterest post or other social media platform as a reminder to #SayHerName as well.
