2023-2024 Imagining America / Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellows 

Announcing the 2023-2024 Imagining America Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellows 

Davis, California — Imagining America is proud to announce a new cohort of 2023-2024 IA/JGS Fellows. These eight undergraduate students from IA Member campuses were selected for their creative use of art to uplift diverse stories, create connection, and build community. 

The goals of the IA/JGS Fellows Program are to elevate photography and digital media as pathways for undergraduate students to pursue their careers and to make a difference in their communities. The program specifically aims to support students for whom economic and family circumstances render such career pathways particularly challenging. Incoming fellows receive a $2,000 tuition scholarship, mentorship and financial support for a community project. They will attend the 2023 IA National Gathering in Providence, Rhode Island from October 20-22, participate in regular virtual learning exchanges, and be connected to the consortium’s national network of scholars, artists, and community organizers. 

Please join us in celebrating the 2023-2024 IA/JGS Fellows:

• Ezra Bantum 

Senior; Interdisciplinary Arts; University of Washington, Bothell.

• Achali Cochrane 

Senior; Studio Arts; Reed College. 

• Jeanne d’Arc Koffi

Junior; Human Organizational Development; Vanderbilt University.

• Nia McMillan

Senior; Journalism Major / Cinematic Arts & Folklore/Pop Culture Minor; University of Southern California.

• Rayan Mohamed

Sophomore; Film/Media Art & Anthropology; Syracuse University. 

• Jonathan Nguyen

Junior; Biology; Carleton College.

• Gabriella Nieves 

Sophomore; Math & Art; Macalester College.

• Danny Zuniga Zarat

Junior; Latin American Studies & Studio Art; Bates College. 

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The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues. By dreaming and building together in public, IA creates the conditions to shift culture and transform inequitable institutional and societal structures.

The Joy of Giving Something, Inc. (JGS), is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the photographic arts and established in 1988 by the late Howard Stein. In 2010, Director of Outreach and Education Wayne Maugans approached IA about expanding support for community-engaged visual arts students as a way to encourage them to pursue post-secondary education and find a life path. Stein saw the visual arts as a potential career for young adults. The IA/JGS Fellows Program is a generous part of Stein’s legacy.