Meet Ariel Seay-Howard, a 2022-2023 ambassador from the Department of Communication in the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts. It's her second consecutive year as a graduate ambassador. 

Below she talks about her takeaways from the ambassadorship and what she's looking forward to this year. 

What are your biggest takeaways from being an ambassador last year? 

I chose to become an ambassador because as a first-generation graduate student, I had to learn about the academy on my own. Now I want to give back and help make it a bit easier for the next generation of students to find the proper resources to be successful.

I returned to the ambassador program because of the great connections and relationships I built last year. I also love being a part of a program where the main mission is to help students navigate college life and to connect students from various departments across campus. There is such a vibrant and encouraging community of scholars at Wayne State and that we all want to help the future generation of students thrive and be successful. 

What are your research interests? 

Currently, my research focuses on how we remember racial violence through material spaces and objects, like museums, former plantations that have been repurposed to educate visitors about the enslaved experience, and films that talk about racial violence and how it has negatively impacted the Black community.

Outside research, I write and perform poetry, I love to cook and hang out outdoors, and I am the owner of a hair and skin care business called Arielssolutions. 

How do you envision your career after Wayne State?

I plan to become a communication professor and continue my research on racial violence. I want to help foster more conversations around racial violence and how it negatively affects the entire society. I will also work hard at fighting for equal education for all students of diverse backgrounds. I want to continue to expose the inequalities that hide in plain sight at the university level. Overall, I hope to be a catalyst for positive change in and outside of academic spaces.