Reckoning with Lancaster
Empowering Our Community to Enact Meaningful Change
We propose to reckon with Lancaster: to come to grips with the city’s complex history and the College’s role in it; to account for and be accountable to its communities, authentically telling the stories of our paths to the city, and our interconnected lives within it; and to forge new partnerships of learning and creation, shaping a future together.
The Reckoning with Lancaster project empowers F&M students and Lancaster community members to move toward enacting meaningful change by spotlighting urgent topics and incorporating them into the life and curriculum of a liberal arts college in a diverse city, engaged in the work of social justice and historical reconciliation.
Reckoning with Lancaster will take place over three years, with each academic year aligning with a specific project and area of focus. Each of the themes will include:
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- Undergraduate research seminars with community-based learning components;
- A faculty research colloquium specific to each theme;
- A non-academic, Lancaster-based leader whose expertise matches individual yearly themes to serve as a community fellow, co-leading the seminar and the accompanying faculty research colloquium
- Annual programming centered in humanistic experiential learning and in partnership with F&M’s Faculty Center; and
- A summer curriculum institute on each theme, where faculty will develop new courses, modify existing courses and organize collaborative work and community events, within and beyond F&M.
This project will explore higher education's relationship with settler colonialism
and the significance of that relationship on F&M and Lancaster's past, present and
future. This theme will build upon contemporary Indigenous studies in F&M's curriculum
and builds upon existing work by F&M's Land Acknowledgement Committee. This project will examine the history of slavery and abolition at F&M and in the surrounding
central Pennsylvania region and explore how those histories inform our approach to
the current challenges of mass incarceration and migrant detention. This theme includes
a curricular focus on mass incarceration, slavery and historic and contemporary abolition
through a humanist perspective and builds upon the Legacies of Slavery @ F&M study
group. This project will address the tension among Lancaster's media recognition as America’s
Refugee Capital, F&M’s robust international student population, and the College and
city's proximity to the Berks County and Moshannon immigration detention centers.
This theme will include coursework for refugee and migration studies and will build
upon the F&M Global Barometers project.2024-2025: Settler Colonialism, Indigeneity and the Land Question
2025-2026: From the Auction Block to the Town Gallows: The Question of Abolition
2026-2027: Refugees, Migrants and the Question of Welcome
Our Team
Project Leadership
Peter Jaros, Associate Professor of English
Cristina Pérez, Assistant Professor of American Studies
Jon Stone, Professor of Russian and Russian Studies
Year 2 Faculty Fellows
Peter Jaros
Associate Professor of English
Cristina Pérez
Assistant Professor of American Studies
Year 2 Community Fellows
Kendra Cochran
Kendra Cochran is the Owner of Fielding your Dream Outreach and founder of Redemptive Measures Corp. "Reaching the world one community at a time" is the cornerstone of her work as a Political Strategist and Effective Outreach Coach. Kendra is a West Philadelphia native with Trinidadian roots. Her journey in advocacy and activism began in high school when she fought against the Philadelphia school district at age 17. Kendra began her career on political campaigns working her way up to Field Director and later Campaign Manager. She then pivoted to serve in the nonprofit sector as Civic Engagement and Political Director for POWER Interfaith and served on the Faith in Action Fund board. Kendra is also an Artist at her core, she enjoys photography, writing poetry, and producing music in her spare time..
Jessica Lopez
Jessica Lopez is the mother of four and an Afro-Latino abolitionist, poet, and organizer based in Lancaster, PA. As Lead Advocate at the Lancaster Bail Fund, she fights to end cash bail and uplift impacted families. A survivor of incarceration and state violence, Jessica uses her voice to challenge systems and inspire healing. Jessica also serves as an Assistant Editor at Let’s Get Free’s Daughters Magazine. She brings lived experience, research, and frontline organizing to her work addressing systemic injustice in Pennsylvania’s legal system. Her efforts include community education, bail reform, policy advocacy, and resource support for criminalized individuals.
Year 1 Faculty Fellows
Prof. Eric Hirsch
Earth & Environment
Prof. Mary Ann Levine
Anthropology
Year 2 Community Fellows
Jess McPherson
Jess McPherson is a Master Artisan and arts & culture strategist with two decades of change making experience in the arts & culture impact sector. She earned a Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice and a BFA from Pennsylvania College of Art & Design. She serves on the Board of Directors at Circle Legacy Center and participates on the Lancaster Longhouse Educational Oversight Committee. She has most recently acted as Finance Director for Native American LifeLines, Inc in Baltimore. In addition, she participated in the “We Are of the Land: Applied De-colonial Practice in East Coast Tribal Communities” roundtable at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association conference. Notable partnerships also include the Eastern 2 Spirit and Indigiqueer Gathering, Maryland State Arts Council, Montgomery and Frederick Colleges, the Cultural Alliance of York County, and Creative York. She currently owns and operates Jess McPherson Arts & Consulting in York, PA, maintaining an active creative practice, while co-creating strategies for growth with individual artists and culturally centered impact initiatives in Native and non-Native communities throughout the MidAtlantic.
MaryAnn Robins
MaryAnn Robins is President of Circle Legacy Center, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and empowering Indigenous peoples here in Lancaster. She is Onondaga and grew up on Haudenosaunee tribal lands in upstate NY. She graduated from Boston College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and worked as an interpreter in the Wampanoag history program at Plimoth Plantation while in Massachusetts. Here in Pennsylvania, she has served as a Plain community liaison for WellSpan Health in New Holland and Ephrata. She is a Carlisle Indian School descendant and former Board member of the Carlisle Indian School Project. She has worked tirelessly on educational programming and advocacy projects designed to elevate the voices of Indigenous peoples. MaryAnn is well known in Lancaster and throughout our region as an indefatigable advocate for the Indigenous community.
F&M is one of just 10 liberal arts colleges to be named a new recipient of a Humanities
for All Times grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. F&M’s grant will provide
funding to support the College’s humanities-based curricular project, “Reckoning with
Lancaster.”F&M Receives $1.4 Million Grant from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Reckoning with
Lancaster” Humanities Project