Special Projects with University Partners
Herstory has a long history of partnering with higher education institutions to engage undergraduate and graduate students in our writing workshops. Partners have included the CALL for Change Freshman Internship Program at SUNY College at Old Westbury, Hofstra University’s Criminology Program and Center for Civic Engagement, Adelphi University’s School of Education, St. Joseph’s College’s Criminology Department, and the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University.
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Beginning in 2011, SUNY Old Westbury, Hofstra, Adelphi, and St. Joseph’s became host sites for a series of afterschool workshops that brought high school students onto college campuses to write side by side with undergraduate students.
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Currently, we host two programs for graduate students at Stony Brook’s School of Social Welfare and Touro Law Center.
MSW Fellowship Program in Partnership with
School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook University
In partnership with Stony Brook School of Social Welfare (SSW), Herstory’s competitive yearlong program for advanced MSW candidates offers 4 to 6 students annually the opportunity to participate in the “Change is Coming: Social Workers at the Forefront” project in Wyandanch, NY. Through intensive training in Herstory’s pedagogy, fellows heal, grow, and transform while finding their voice. They
then bring this work into the Wyandanch community, facilitating workshops in school and community settings that support students and community members to develop their voices, leadership skills, and the agency to speak their truths. Together, these efforts contribute to meaningful community action and change, as well as to the field of social work.
Linda Howard Weissman Youth Writing for Justice Program:
Pro Bono Law Internship at Touro Law Center
Established in 2023, the Linda Howard Weissman Youth Justice Program brings together law student interns and justice-involved youth, ages 12-18, to write alongside one another with the goal of using personal memoir to guide young people on a path of self-reflection and self-discovery so they can feel empowered to effectively advocate for themselves, while creating deeper empathy and awareness in future attorneys. The program is carried out in partnership with Touro Law School’s Public Advocacy Center and the ConcepTS Court diversion program for youth established by Acting NYS Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho. Workshop participation is an option Judge Camacho presents to court-involved youth as part of their probation and/or as an alternative to incarceration.
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This program was named in honor of the late Linda Howard Weissman, a Herstory board member who was Assistant Dean for Institutional Advancement at Touro Law Center for nearly 30 years. This internship provides an opportunity for Touro law students to write alongside court-involved youth in the same workshop, encouraging young people to find their voice in order to tell their stories and advocate for themselves. The internship strives to ensure that law students fulfill Weissman’s dream of lawyers expanding their skills to be able to help people involved in the criminal legal system tell their stories in ways that evoke empathy in those who have power over their lives. Through writing about how racial and other structural injustices impact their lives, young people in this program have the opportunity to heal, transform and dream new futures.
Testify: Memoir as a Tool for Action
This workshop provides the opportunity to explore and experience how memoir can be used as a tool to create positive social change. Offered in partnership with the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, Testify brings together community members and SBU undergraduates to write about the relationship between their individual experiences and larger social issues that may have directly shaped their lives. Whether writing about discrimination, inequality, violence, or other challenging themes, each participant has a story the world needs to hear, which encourages them to approach writing with a sense of urgency and commitment.
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Through conceiving of and telling their stories through the prism of advocacy, participants experience how finding their voice in writing leads to feeling empowered to amplify that voice to make change. A key component of Herstory’s story-based strategy for change is to provide opportunities for public readings, online publication, and pop-events related to themes that arise in the workshops.
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Meets Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 EST during the fall and spring semesters via Zoom