Vassar Students to Screen and Discuss Their New Film On Community Leader Lateef Islam. Thursday, May 18, 2006

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — Recently deceased Poughkeepsie community leader Lateef Islam was the subject of a senior American Culture seminar at Vassar College this semester, and the students produced a 14-minute documentary film on Islam as their major joint project. The thirteen students will screen and discuss their film on Thursday, May 18, at 11:00 a.m., in the Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library, part of the Family Partnership Center at 29 N. Hamilton Street in the City of Poughkeepsie.

At the screening, the American Culture majors will explain their methodology for studying and documenting Islam's life, as well as possible social policy implications of his legacy. Several people interviewed for the film will also attend the screening, and participate in the discussion, including Dutchess County Clerk and former Poughkeepsie mayor Collette Lafuente, Bishop Deborah E. Gause, and Family Partnership Center president Joe D'Ambrosia.

Thirty-five hours of interviews were conducted for the project, and all the raw footage will be archived for public use at the Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library. The Vassar seminar, "Telling American Lives: Lateef Islam of Poughkeepsie," particularly addressed Islam's status as a leader in the local African American community. A former inmate at the Green Haven Correctional Center, Islam died of liver failure last October.

"The story that emerges in the film is a view of the Poughkeepsie community, black and white, that goes beyond Poughkeepsie, right into an American story," said professor of Hispanic Studies Andrew Bush, who co-taught the seminar with Peter Leonard, Director of Field Work at Vassar and director of the Poughkeepsie Institute, as well as Maria Marewski, executive director of the Children's Media Project, and an adjunct instructor at Vassar.

For further information, contact Peter Leonard at (845) 437-5280 and leonard@vassar.edu.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Friday, May 12th, 2006.