EXCITING NEWS!!Dr. Leslie Clement (formerly Gutierrez), Dr. Felesia Stukes and Dr. Charles Johnson were awarded a $20,000 grant from the National Humanities Center (NHC) in February of 2024 to develop a co-constructed, team-taught, interdisciplinary course entitled African Diaspora and AI, across two North Carolina HBCU campuses (JCSU & NCCU) that will launch during the 2025-26 academic school year.
Their course brings computer science and the humanities, with specific reference to the African Diaspora, into a conversation about how to create more inclusive AI tools and culturally sensitive AI practitioners.
I. Academic Collaborative Presentations [paper presentation]
1. “HBCU Faculty Prepare a Pipeline of Responsible AI Curators and Practitioners,”AI For All Open Education Summit, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee (June 2024)
Faculty-student mentorship: Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) Honors Program senior, Traykiese Gillentine (2025), who is an IDS major with concentrations in computer science Information technology and engineering, co-presented on why he chose to study technology through an humanistic lens.
2.“Responsible AI, Data Science, and Cross-Curricular, Inter-institutional Partnerships, HBCU STEM & Humanities Summers Institute, Howard University, Washington, D.C. August 2024 [panel presentation]
“I want to be remembered as someone who was sincere. Even if I made mistakes, they were made in sincerity, If I was wrong, I was wrong in sincerity.” -Malcolm X
MY DIGITAL HUMANITIES ACTIVISM, SCHOLARSHIP & TEACHING:
My Ongoing Charlotte Digital Diasporas Project! 2015:Digital Diasporas of North Carolina: Exploring Africa and its Diasporas in Charlotte Introduction to the Participants in my Charlotte Digital Diasporas Project Watchthe introduction video of the seven life stories that I collected below:
2015: *FULL DIGITAL STORIES-I captured seven digital life stories of people of African descent living in Charlotte, North Carolina to explore and celebrate the diversity of global black cultures locally. I presented them at the 2016 National Council for Black Studies annual conference. Click on the link below to watch the seven participants’ short documentaries: https://www.youtube.com/user/MsLeslie38
My 2022 CTI Seminar:Charlotte as Teaching Canvas: Creating Culturally Responsive Classrooms & Equity-Mindsets by Engaging in Local Diasporic Spaces
2015: I was a faculty fellow participant in a 10-day digital tools seminar entitled “The City as Teaching Canvas,” sponsored by the New York University (NYU) Faculty Research Network at the American College of Greece in Athens, Greece
2014: “Re-Presenting the Global Classroom and Faces of Study Abroad through International Faculty Development and Digital Humanities.” NYU FRN National Symposium: The Global Imperative for Higher Education. San Juan, Puerto Rico
2016: SPA 496-A: Voces y Activismo Global: Narrativas Digitales de Guerra, Trauma, y Migración/ENG 498-Global Voices and Activism: (Digital Stories of War, Trauma, & Migration). This was a hybrid interdisciplinary course that focused on faculty scholarship and community activism surrounding migration and trauma. Students explored how to use various digital platforms/tools to bare-witness (testimoniar), cope with trauma (la depresión / el temor / la seperación de familias/ la deportación/la violencia), and advocate (abogar) for local social justice..
2014:Co-Teacher, *SPA 496-B: Digital Storytelling: Transnational Identities and Movements.I co-created and co-taught this interdisciplinary (Spanish/English) hybrid productions course with Dr. Sharon D. Raynor. Student Digital Story from the SPA 496-B class was published, Kayla Wilmer, “From Rapping to Rappin,” The Freshness of Opt-Ed Videos, Public Media Scan. AIR, Inc
