National Writing Day Focuses on Global Ed. of Women and Girls, Writing for Advocacy

NOVA celebrated the Seventh Annual National Writing Day on October 20 in the CE Forum. The event started with inspiring words from Annandale Provost, Dr. Diane Mucci. Students enjoyed meeting and chatting with their campus’s provost.

The event featured two impressive speakers. Ms. Nasrina Bargzie, deputy counsel for Vice President Kamala Harris. Also, she formerly served as a national security fellow at the National ACLU in New York City, where she brought high impact litigation focused on civil and human rights abuses. Dr. Marc Howard, professor of government and law at Georgetown University’s Law School, and one of the country’s leading advocates for restoring humanity to the American criminal punishment system.

The theme of this year’s National Writing Day event was social justice, and the goal was to celebrate writing across the curriculum; to establish the importance of communication, education, diversity, equity and inclusivity and to inspire our students with the power of the written word. Both speakers discussed the power of their writing in their careers in social justice.

Ms. Bargzie talked about the importance of education and writing based on her own life journey and on her time at the ACLU where she worked on civil and human rights abuses. Born in Afghanistan, she discussed how important it is for women to receive an education. There are still many places in the world where it is against the law to educate women and girls. 

Dr. Howard delved into the prison reform system and talked about humanizing the incarcerated. Based on his experiences as the founding director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative, at Georgetown University, and as founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice, a non-profit organization launched in 2020 that brings members of free society into direct proximity with people in prisons to allow them to discover firsthand our common humanity and to learn to advocate for systemic change.

Both speakers encouraged the students to work hard to hone their ability to communicate through their writing and to reflect on how accessibility to education is a critical issue in the world today and how education has the potential to help young people shape their vision of the society in which they want to live and thrive. 

The event featured a robust Q & A session between the students and the speakers. Both speakers provided thoughtful and insightful answers to students’ questions, setting a stage for a rich exploration of social justice themes centering around civil and criminal justice issues including a strong component of historical, social and economic nuances, which shape human perception. Ultimately, the event concluded with a message of fostering education for the promotion of positive societal growth. 

Submitted by:
Dr. Rima Gulshan, AN-English, RGulshan@nvcc.edu