Rozzell Medina (he/him), Lead Instructor
Rozzell's passion for teaching is rooted in a belief that people learning together, in community, can greatly improve people's lives and our society as a whole. However, this won't happen if we model our classrooms and learning communities after institutions that harm people and the health of our society. So Rozzell looks to nature, Indigeneity, art, and liberation for inspiration to create healthy and creative learning communities. In addition to managing programs and serving as the lead instructor of Humanity in Perspective, Rozzell is the festival director of the Portland EcoFilm Festival. Previously, he founded and directed the creative learning nonprofit, Public Social University, which transformed art galleries, cafes, museums, and public parks into free, temporary community schools. He also directed the Chiron Studies program at Portland State University, which enabled students to create, design, and instruct official, for-credit classes.
Rozzell grew up in and around Choctaw, Oklahoma; San Francisco, California; and San Antonio, Texas. He has lived in Portland for about 20 years, though he loves wandering off now and then, mostly to visit ancestral homelands in Mexico and New Mexico.
Adam Davis (he/him) has been the executive director of Oregon Humanities since 2013 and previously directed the Center for Civic Reflection in Chicago. In these jobs, he's trained thousands of discussion leaders across the country, facilitated hundreds of community and workplace discussions, moderated onstage conversations with community-builders, office-holders, and authors, and worked on organizational planning, support, and growth. He is host of Oregon Humanities’ podcast and radio show, The Detour, and he has edited books including Taking Action, The Civically Engaged Reader, and Hearing the Call across Traditions. Adam has taught several philosophy and literature classes in Humanity in Perspective and other Clemente Courses.
Ari Lombardi (they/them) is a Portland-based multihyphenate artist, poet, memoirist, and curator. Their work explores the construction of self through sonics, semiotics, and embodied language. Ari studied Creative Writing (BA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Mandarin and Curatorial Studies (MA) in Taipei, Taiwan. They have hosted workshops and curated international exhibitions, with their artworks and writing featured in shows in Santa Fe, Guangzhou, and Taipei. Ari co-founded and is Executive Editor of KNACK Magazine and has been facilitating with Write Around Portland since early 2024.
Ari joins us as a guest facilitator from Write Around Portland.
Eben Pindyck has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and VICE, among others. He was an O'Brien Fellow in Public Service Journalism at Marquette University.
Manya Yana Campos is a Xicana poet, multidisciplinary artist, educator and mother creature. She has been published in Ofrenda magazine, We’Moon, and The Jefferson Journal. She is the author of two chapbooks, Blue Corn, Mixed Masa, and the Occasional Magic Trick and a look of defiance. radiant. She just completed a hybrid manuscript titled Legalize My Mother and is a two-time recipient of the Haines & Friends Visual Arts Grant for her multimedia installation, Latina Geniuses are everywhere. Manya received her MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art.
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