Graduate Profile: Keondra Prier

Keondra Prier didn’t expect to become an activist at Barnard.

“My initial expectations were to do well and graduate,” she said. But the former academic affairs representative for Barnard’s Student Government Asociation explained that soon, she realized “how easy it was to affect the institution by a little bit of work and involvement.”

In her time at Barnard, Prier has worked as a strong advocate for the creation of an ethnic studies program, and has tried to expand the conversation on a debate which has racked the college for more than two decades. While some argue that courses examining power dynamics and ethnic identity already exist in several Barnard departments, Prier and others emphasize what they see as the need for a centralized ethnic studies major and department, a position which Prier said is informed by her experiences as an Africana studies major.

“Africana studies has been on the rocks since it started [1992],” she said, comparing “all of the struggles” that her major has gone through to the debate over ethnic studies today.

A March 6 submission published in the Opinion section of Spectator this year revealed some of Prier’s concerns about the current state of the program, shared by other members of the SGA. In her view, ethnic studies should be included in the Nine Ways of Knowing, the central curriculum of the Barnard education.

“We’ve seen an inability to articulate our experiences and our frustrations, and ethnic studies does that in a very educational and humanistic way,” Prier said, adding that the administration’s extensive work toward the creation of a major has received little recognition.

In a similar vein, in her junior year Prier founded The Proxy, a magazine that showcases creative pieces by students who identify with the African Diaspora. Stemming from her involvement in the Black Organization of Soul Sisters, a group established at Barnard in 1968 and on whose board she was a representative, Prier expressed the importance of including all the peoples of Africa and not restricting the mission to one of black identity.

Prier hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology and ultimately teach, and anticipates that by the time she is in graduate school, ethnic studies will have found its place at the college.

“I have a lot of faith in it becoming a major in the next four years,” she said, pausing for a second to chuckle about the possibility of soon being an alumna. “They’ll hear something from me. Hopefully by then I won’t be dead broke!”