The Herberger Institute graduated more than 1,200 designers and artists in the 2020-21 academic year, including fall 2020 graduation and spring 2021 graduation. These are just a few of those outstanding graduating students.
Outstanding graduating students make their mark
Rayven Cannon
“I’m a first-generation college student. I’m Black. I’m Native American. And I’m white. Going into this profession, I did not know that the numbers were very low and that the numbers were stacked against me. Knowing that and knowing that I’m very competitive, I want to win. And I want everybody around me to win.”
Cannon, who graduated with her master’s degree in architecture, harnessed her passion to find her voice and to amplify the voices of her fellow classmates. Read more about her journey.
Amber Cook
“My parents fought to raise me to be as independent as I can be and to have just as much equal opportunity as everyone else.”
Cook, who is from St. Michaels, on the Navajo reservation, was born with cerebral palsy. She uses a wheelchair, has a slight speech impediment and some limitations in her hands. She learned from a young age to advocate for herself — a skill that has served her well while in college. Read more about Cook, who earned a degree in art studies and a minor in design studies, and her time at ASU.
Michael Hasan
“My freshman year I wrote a script for a director who wanted to direct a movie about somebody with schizophrenia. I’ve had struggles with mental health so I used my own experience and put a lot of work into it. The director cut half the script and completely changed the direction of the film. I was upset about it and thought, ‘How do I prevent this from happening in the future?’ And that’s when I decided I wanted to direct.”
Hasan graduated with a degree in film and media production with a focus on directing. Read more about his time at ASU and how he wants to share his story through directing.
Omar Hashem
Omar Hashem didn’t give up his passion for film despite growing up in Saudi Arabia during a time when cinemas were banned. He didn’t give up his dream of working as a filmmaker when his parents were against it. He didn’t give up when doctors diagnosed him with a rare disease in his lungs and told him he needed a double lung transplant. He didn’t give up during chemotherapy for a post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder tumor. And he didn’t give up when his body rejected the new lungs and he underwent surgery again for a second double lung transplant. A year and half after his second double lung transplant, Hashem graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in film and media production from The Sidney Poitier New American Film School. Read his story.
John Joe
Irish and Diné (Navajo) student John Joe graduated this spring with an MFA in art (digital technology). His MFA thesis exhibition, “Our Way, Route 2021,” featured a soundwalk project with a route that is Joe’s journey traveling from his family home in Naschitti, New Mexico, to Hweeldi-Fort Sumner, New Mexico. “The Fort Sumner site holds a painful past for Diné people where they were marched from their homes,” according to Joe’s website. “These collective routes are known as the Long Walk. ‘Our Way’ is a personal route navigating cultural ways of being and honoring protocols while speaking to the resilience and strength of our past and present through the humble act of walking and listening.”
Sumana Mandala
“A career in dance did not suit the expectations of my family when I was starting to make career choices, but I kept coming back to it and made a career out of teaching dance and performing wherever I found myself. As my teaching and performing experience grew, the urgency of delving deeper into my practice and my intentions became stronger, so that, by the time I returned to Scottsdale with my family, my husband felt the need for me to join grad school as much as I did, and he’s the one who actually made my initial application to grad school.”
Mandala graduated with her Master of Fine Arts in dance, two decades after she first looked into the possibility of studying dance at ASU. Read her story.
Dave Osmundsen
“In addition to telling neurodivergent stories from a neurodivergent perspective, my mission as a playwright is to uplift other neurodivergent voices that may have been shut out by the mainstream narrative of how neurotypical families cope with autism.”
Dave Osmundsen graduated with an MFA in dramatic writing. Read more about how Osmundsen is already making a name for himself in the theatre world.
Jay Williams
“As a Black filmmaker in America, there are a host of stories that I would love to be part of telling to help fill the perspective from Black culture. The Black experience in film needs to be so much more than the slave narrative and the annual Hollywood slave movie. It’s important not only for wider audiences to see that, it’s essential for us to see ourselves as more than that. I want to do my part to present our stories to the world so that our voices are heard.”
Read more about Williams and how he will combine his film knowledge and the new skills he learned while earning his Master of Arts in digital culture.