To Build a FYRE

…takes a village. Or, in this case, some dedicated staff, faculty, and administrators at the University of Pennsylvania, the archival resources of the University, the arts and cultural landscape of Philadelphia, and—most crucially—the passion and talents of three remarkable undergraduates.

The First Year Research Experience (FYRE) is a program that provides paid summer research internships for first-year undergraduates from Leadership Alliance minority-serving partner institutions and HBCUs. Students are matched with people and projects that suit their interests and strengths. This is the first year Penn was able to offer three arts-based internships: one in art history, one in curation, and one in music history. These positions were supported through the partnership of the Office of the Vice Provost of the Arts, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Leadership Alliance.

Associate Vice Dean for Academic Excellence & Engagement, Vanessa Gonzalez-Perez, credits Dean Beth S. Wenger (Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, School of Arts and Sciences) for being the first to say yes to the program, while emphasizing that the students themselves are what made the summer exceptional: “In a matter of ten weeks, I’ve seen such a difference. By the end they were able to do these incredible presentations in ten minutes, they were able to get to the point, really shine—and more importantly—they were able to be themselves. That’s how they chose the projects they ended up working on… they really brought themselves in, and it’s not anything I could have predicted in an application.”

All the students traveled for their internship. Flora Clampet, a Political Science major, hails from Spelman College (Atlanta, GA) although she was born in Philly and still has family here. Jadyn Fleming came from Xavier University of Louisiana (New Orleans, LA) where he double majors in in Political Science/Pre-law and Social Studies Education. And Taia Pegues, a Mass Communication and History double major at Tougaloo College (Tougaloo, MS). All of them arrived at Penn in June with what one of their advisors called “fierce curiosity” and an openness to the work ahead of them.

That work proved to be fascinating in both scope and focus.

Clampet spent her summer examining the cross-publication dialogue (about “third-worldism” as well as other ideological subjects) between the Black Panthers and the People’s Republic of China. She also worked to create an archival object for The Condition of Being Near—an Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) exhibit launching September 26th.

Fleming became intrigued by the relationship between Black portraitist Laura Wheeler Waring and her groundbreaking subject Sadie T. M. Alexander (a pioneering civil rights activist and the first Black woman to practice law in Pennsylvania). He traveled to the Smithsonian archives in DC when he could not find the material he felt necessary to do the project justice.

Taia Pegues’ “natural archival imagination” eventually settled upon the media neglect of mid-90s hip-hop culture in Philadelphia. After a period of broader exploration that included other cities’ scenes, she ended up pursuing a project that would outline the missing pieces.

Each student, given the opportunity to be co-creators of their projects, eventually identified gaps in their areas of study they both felt moved to start filling in and personally connected to. This is no easy task. Dr. Jasmine Henry (who mentored Pegues) describes it this way: “That was the case with all of the interns that came to Penn this year: they were already connecting their family lives, their cultural experiences, and the world around them into their academic and intellectual inquiry. There’s something really powerful about that.” Many academics don’t find their way to invested research projects until graduate school, if then.

On August 5th, the students presented their work to a group of academics and supporters in the theater at the ICA. They spoke about their findings and—in the summer following their first years at college—fielded the kind of questions they may later encounter at academic conferences or in dissertation defenses. The two themes that came up in their presentations and during interviews were choice and access. There is no doubt that when offered entry to world-class resources and entrusted to develop projects that aligned with their passions, these interns flourished.

Of her experience with Jadyn Fleming, his mentor Lynn Dolby, Director of The Penn Art Collection, had this to say: “He has done such a great job, and it’s really his first time dealing with primary sources. He was able to look at Sadie Alexander’s PhD thesis, her wedding shower invitations, notes that she’s written. To watch him make these discoveries—well, I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s been… phenomenal.”

Fleming agreed that these materials had indeed captured his interest: “I love looking at the archives—that’s one of my favorite aspects of history, so that was a main part of what I did research-wise: looked at specific artifacts, documents, photographs.” He was grateful for Dolby’s style of mentorship and the larger institutional access that made his research possible: “My mentor tried to give me a lot of independence while still supporting me. She offered guidance and feedback whenever she could but still allowed me to do my own thing. For instance, I was able to visit the Smithsonian Archives of the Arts, mainly due to the limited documents and archives in Philadelphia surrounding the artist Laura Wheeler Waring. Penn, specifically the Arts at Penn, supported my trip to DC. I appreciated that—100%.”

Denise Ryner, Andrea B. Laporte Curator at ICA, mentored Flora Clampet. She noted that Clampet’s range of interests helped shape her own concepts around curation: “It was interesting for me to think of how everything that we’re doing at ICA can be presented or made fascinating to someone who’s interested in art and interested in current events and history—but might not want to go into it professionally.” Ryner added, maybe wistfully, “She doesn’t want to go on to become a curator, as far as I know, unless I’ve managed to change her mind.”

Clampet described how she approached her project: “My main resource was the Kislak Center at the Van Pelt Library. I went through the Black Panther Party newspapers… from the late 60s to the late 70s. I spent about a week going through all of them. Multiple Panthers took trips to China, both to meet with politicians, and then there were also some who went to learn more about holistic medicine. The amount of writing I was able to read from the different Panthers themselves… there was just so much detail and depth.” Clampet also worked on a physical object that could be made available at the coming exhibition: “We’re actually going to use some of the scans I took in the upcoming exhibit, and we worked with Common Press to do some printed pamphlets that are going to be available—that was a really cool aspect of my research.”

Dr. Henry reflected on what working with Taia Pegues taught her about her own sense of pedagogy: “There was a balance the whole summer: How do I provide structure, but then let her fully embrace the research process, which is inherently messy? We needed that period of exploration, of bringing together different ideas and contexts and theories—then narrowing, then expanding out again and narrowing in—to really be able to get there.”

Pegues’ project had perhaps the largest scope of her cohort. She talked about her initial parameters: “I focused on mapping the geography of 1990s hip-hop culture in Philadelphia. I was looking at artists like The Roots and their contemporaries, and at places like clubs, different clothing stores, theaters—anywhere where hip-hop kind of thrived during that time period.” She also spoke candidly about an impasse she reached, a stopping point any researcher will recognize: “I mainly used archives from The Philadelphia Inquirer on newspapers.com. I figured that would have the most information. But when I was working on the project, I realized I was having a lot of trouble finding good, specific info. I could find that maybe this happened here, but I couldn’t get more. At first I thought it was just a matter of not having access, and then I realized they literally didn’t write about it.” She came to a conclusion that is also familiar to anyone who has spent time in research trenches: “It was… well, it gave me a breakthrough in my research—because I learned I had to look at different stuff and piece together what I could.”

After seeing the presentations, Vice Provost of the Arts Tim Rommen, commented: “Penn is fortunate to host these remarkable students. They enlivened our campus this summer and inspired us with their passion for research. In the years ahead, I hope we will have opportunities to welcome more of these exceptional scholars into our intellectual community.” The program is indeed unique in the independence and access it offers to students at the very beginning of their academic lives. This motivated cohort lived on Penn campus, traveled solo to DC and NYC (Pegues happened to be there when the Knicks won!), self-managed projects under the guidance of mentors who gave them both direction and leeway, and completed ten weeks of research by communicating their findings to scholars and professionals in fields they had interest in, but little prior experience. They met with Penn Provost John Jackson, whose academic trajectory and candor impressed them. “He’s an HBCU student who then went on to graduate school,” Clampet noted, “but he told us his path wasn’t exactly linear.” Fleming added, “The possibilities are endless with what you can do.”

The FYRE program combines one-on-one mentorship and arts research—it is rigorous, curious, inspiring. These scholars may very well leave Penn changed, but as Gonzalez-Perez astutely noted: “They should also be aware of the footprint they are leaving behind.”