Kia Turner
Doctoral Student, Stanford Graduate School of Education
Thesis Title: Revolt! Rally! Revise! Reclaiming the Power of the Black Narrative in Activist Achievements Against Harvard
What Now: Doctoral Student at the Stanford Graduate School of Education
Hist & Lit was one of the best decisions I made at Harvard. I fell in love with both the content and skills that are essential to the concentration. While I was unsure of what I wanted to do during my time in college, I always knew that I was passionate about what I was doing in my tutorials and seminars. I can confidently say that I walked out of every class I took in Hist & Lit having grown—both as a human being and an academic. Two of my favorite classes—Stories of Slavery and Freedom and my sophomore tutorial—made me realize that I loved working with other people to uncover atypical meaning from texts.
After graduation, I was a Founding Fellow of the Harvard Teacher Fellows and earned my Masters in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2017. I then taught for five years, four of which were spent teaching Middle School English in Harlem. I’m currently pursuing a PhD in race, inequality, and language in education at Stanford Graduate School of Education and my JD at Yale Law School. I hope to use abolitionist theory to explore how the understanding and practice of community informs Black and Brown students' experiences of punishment and justice in schools.