To honor the achievements and contributions of our Humanities Alliance Fellows, this year we are featuring each fellow on our website, introducing them to our CUNY community and the public, and showcasing their accomplishments as fellows. 

Sokunthary Svay (she/her) was a 2021-2023 fellow based at the Guttman Community College while pursuing her Ph.D. in English at the CUNY Graduate Center.

At Guttman, Sok has co-organized workshops and panels that facilitate writing exercises, performance, and discussion around Latinx Heritage Month, Guttman’s Big Read program, and National Poetry Month with faculty and HA fellows. Sok’s panel, Poetics, Poesis, and Professors: Artists Teaching at Public Two-Year Colleges, held in April 2023, brought together artist-teachers across CUNY to celebrate the multitudes of their work while also examining how each panelists’ art practice informs their pedagogy in public community colleges. Like Sok’s other projects, the panel featured a range of poetry and photography.

Reflecting on the fellowship, Sok says, “It’s still an adjustment to refer to what I do within the realm of humanities but I see now, that I’m smack dab in the middle of it…Ultimately, the human interaction and the appreciation for what it creates in culture, in inquiry, and the learning that comes from it is at the heart of everything I do whether creating or teaching. I am steeped in the humanities. I would say now that it is the foundation of my work.” 

We celebrate her brilliance and creativity, her tenacity and compassion, and the many ways she has been there for her colleagues during a pandemic and its aftermath. She showed both a willingness to learn and understand the systems and cultures that define these academic spaces and a generosity to contribute her own experiences and interests. 

Thank you, Sok!