Alumni
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Jasmin Norford
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Jasmin Norford is a current senior double majoring in English and Philosophy and minoring in Brazilian studies. Within these fields, Jasmin has concentrated her focus on racial and cultural phenomenon within both the literary and ethnographical world. During the last three years in the program Jasmin has discovered new and unique ways to comingle her passions for identity and language with her desire to be a community servant.
Before starting at Vanderbilt, Jasmin was involved with service ventures at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, local nursing homes and Northside Hospital in her home state. Since beginning service at Vanderbilt, Jasmin’s service influences have developed and she has begun working with several different organizations and in varied fields of interest. One organization she has truly enjoyed her time with is College Guild: a non-traditional education program for incarcerated individuals that allows space to expand knowledge in fields of interests from creative writing to biology. Organizations like this allow her to engage with her passions for education and the written word, helping individuals understand the power of writing and language as a mechanism for personal progress. Other organizations such as NICE Citizenship Classes and Glamor Gals have afforded her the unique opportunity of meeting elders and immigrants within Nashville, reaching out to two powerfully essential and often forgotten sectors of the community. Following her sophomore year, Jasmin completed her 8-week summer service project in Duque de Caxias, Rio. During this time, she was able to delve deep and apply the more theoretical cultural information that she studies during the school year. Over the course of her project Jasmin partnered with a group of students at the UERJ-FEBF campus helping them to prepare, edit, and translate papers and conference materials for an international conference on Women’s Leadership in Education. During this project, she used academics as a means of demonstrating the power of first generation college students as leaders in the field of education. Bringing together both career and service, Jasmin was grateful for this summer project experience that took a slightly different spin on the definition of service. In this space, she learned about the power of research and academics as one way we can begin to tackle issues within communities and can empower communities to establish a voice for themselves.
This summer experience catalyzed further engagement in language and literacy as Jasmin pursued further involvements in local literacy and writing initiatives in Nashville. This included beginning work as an early intervention literacy tutor through he YMCA, as well as pursuing further involvement with College Guild. This summer experience was also instrumental in developing her integration of academics and service, as she plans to pursue a thesis dealing with identity and social policy in Brazilian, and plans to continue working in Brazilian studies after her undergraduate experience. Jasmin is beyond grateful for both the experience and community she gains from the Ingram program. She is excited to continue her journey in service, and to further develop her ability to act on her passion to serve and learn in her community.