Mentorship as Improvisation: On Teaching and Mentoring During Uncertain Times

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Discussion

Abstract

This roundtable brings together scholars who have benefited from, participated in, and contributed to mentorship programs at various stages in their professional careers. As higher education is barraged with right wing threats including attacks on DEI, revocation of federal funding, threats to undocumented students and faculty, and the rise of artificial intelligence, Kimberly Mack, Tiffany Barber, Takina Walker, and Alejandra Prieto-Mendoza will reflect on the importance of mentorship programs designed for first-generation, low-income students, students of color, and early career faculty. Additionally, each panelist will reflect on how the mentorship programs they are affiliated with – the Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement at Duke University, the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, the Cooper-Du Bois Mentoring Program at Pennsylvania State University, and the McNair Scholars Program at Roosevelt University – have improvised their strategies for facilitating mentorship in light of specific attacks on race and gender.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Chair

• Sasha Ann Panaram, Fordham University

Panelists

• Kimberly Mack, University of Illinois

• Tiffany Barber, UCLA

• Alejandra Prieto-Mendoza, Roosevelt University

• Takina D Walker, Pennsylvania State University

Biographical Information

Sasha Ann Panaram (chair) is an assistant professor of English at Fordham University, where she specializes in African American and Caribbean literature, with a particular interest in slavery studies and women’s and gender studies. From 2023 – 2025, she held the Cheryl A. Wall Postdoctoral Fellowship in African American & African Diasporic Literary Studies and the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice Postdoctoral Fellowship at Rutgers University.

Kimberly Mack is Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-
Champaign. Her book, Living Colour’s Time’s Up, part of Bloomsbury’s acclaimed 33 1/3 bookseries, was published in May 2023. She is the author of Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), which won the 2021 College English Association of Ohio’s Nancy Dasher Award and was a finalist for the 2022 IASPM-US Woody Guthrie First Book Award.

Tiffany E. Barber is an Assistant Professor of African American Art at UCLA. Her debut monograph, Undesirability and Her Sisters: Black Women’s Visual Work and the Ethics of Representation (NYU Press, 2025), cements her reputation as a leading tastemaker and thinker of this generation. Dr. Barber’s unique blend of art history, performance theory, and Black feminist thought inspires diverse audiences and institutions to advance new cultural futures.

Takina Walker is a dual-title PhD student in English and African American and Diaspora Studies at Penn State University. As both a scholar and creative writer, her work centers on Black women’s literature with a special focus on 20th-century African American romance. She explores how race, gender, and sexuality intersect in romantic narratives, drawing connections within the Black literary imagination and its transformative possibilities.

Alejandra Prieto-Mendoza brings over 15 years of experience advising, recruiting, and teaching underrepresented students across diverse higher education settings Since joining Roosevelt University in 2021, Dr. Prieto-Mendoza has worked with the McNair Scholars Program—first as Program Director (appointed in 2022) and as the School Representative for the Diversifying Faculty in Illinois (DFI) Fellowship.