Meet the Mentors
Mike Hawkins
Associate Director/Lead Mentor
Mike Hawkins (aka Brother Mike) is the heart and soul of YOUmedia. The Associate Director and Lead Mentor for Digital Youth Network, Brother Mike came to DYN with eight years’ experience working in the classroom at Carter G. Woodson on Chicago’s South Side. Brother Mike specializes in spoken word and hip-hop. In 1999, he co-founded a performance group called Poetree Chicago, which brought spoken word and hip-hop together to venues and communities throughout Chicago. The group was selected for the Illinois Arts Council’s Traveling Artist Roster, creating positive, uplifting material that could inspire and educate. In 2004, the group produced its first album, Positive Pollution.
As a DYN mentor, Brother Mike has worked across media, from spoken word to radio to graphic design. Most notably he helped develop a multi-media arts class called “iRemix Records,” in which sixth-grade students analyze and critique the music industry while learning how to create their own music. Students take on multiple roles as producers, artists, managers, designers, and videographers, with the goal of creating a CD and presenting their work to a larger audience. Brother Mike is the creator of such projects as Change Society, which engages students in media creation with a focus on civic engagement, and Lyricist Loft, which provides a pathway for students to showcase their work to a public audience.
“Students have the power to participate in the media, to react to the media, to create the media, to be the media. With this newfound power, our youth don’t have to simply be fed what the media present; they can join in the process, provide a broader more relevant perspective, and define themselves in new, powerful ways. This idea of redefinition can influence the birth of a new youth renaissance.”
Read about Brother Mike at The Remix Renaissance and at Mentoring to a New Beat.
More Info about this mentor
Erica Neal
Mentor
After four years as a Designer/Art Director with a Chicago advertising agency and three years as a volunteer Art/Drama Teacher, Erica decided to leave corporate work and pursue a more rewarding, youth focused career. After completing a professional leadership development program with Steppenwolf Theater’s education department, she began her search for a creative “home” and found it in Digital Youth Network.
With a background in Fine Art as well as Design, Ms. Vaughn has also worked as a Scenic Designer/Painter with ETA Creative Arts Foundation. No matter where her journey takes her she will always have a heart for creativity, its place in our communities and in the lives of our children.
More Info about this mentor
Raphael Nash
Mentor
Raphael Nash is Digital Youth Network's Coordinator for Video Production and The Youth Mentorship Program. He is an MFA Candidate in Film and Media Arts at Temple University, and is the CEO/Creative Director of the Media Production and Product Design Company, Endangered Peace.
Over the past 2 years, Raphael has presented the program with new paths for Video and Media creation through his Photo/Digital Video Production Pods and Video Editing Classes. Creating Curricula that presents film/video making as a process, and not a mere activity, students deconstruct popular media to understand the formal construction of their own.
Using Film as a tool of expression, students use their Filmmaking knowledge to create Short Films, Documentaries, Public Service Announcements, and Commercial Advertisements.
As Coordinator of The Youth Mentorship Program, he works with students who have been with DYN for 3 plus years - providing them with employment opportunities within DYN as Instruction Assistants, as well as Freelance Media Producers for partnering organizations.
In the Summer of 2008, the Youth Mentors took lead in DYN's Summer Film Program in conjunction with the IFP/Chicago, to create the short film, Division 201. Both programs guided the Youth Mentors and 30 additional students through the entire script-to-screen process of producing a Short film - providing professional training, equipment, and actors.
By allowing these students to gain a professional filmmaking experience, his goal is to prepare them to intern with professional media creators the following summer, and to be prepared to enter a work intensive collegiate film and media program the following years.
More Info about this mentor
Taylor Bayless
Librarian
Taylor Bayless is a librarian and Chicago native. After finishing a BFA in Cinema Studies at New York University, Taylor decided to leave the entertainment world behind to become a librarian. In 2008 she graduated from the School of Information at University of Michigan with an MSI in Library and Information Services. Taylor believes in supporting all media in the library setting; making connections between books, movies, music and more. Taylor is a former collegiate swimmer and a film geek of the highest order and will always keep those movie recommendations coming (especially in the realms of animation and German cinema).
More Info about this mentor
Asia Roberson
Mentor
The epitome of a teaching artist, Asia is an accomplished singer and actress with an extensive background as a community activist and youth mentor. As she grows as an artist, Asia finds strength and fulfillment in lending her creativity bringing her passion for community and arts development to the classroom.
Asia believes that the work she does at the classroom level will enable tomorrow's leaders to extend the learning experience and grow into active responsible global citizens.
More Info about this mentor
Jennifer Steele
Mentor
Jennifer Steele is a native of Connecticut. She is a teaching artist for various organizations around the city of Chicago including Hands On Stanzas, Camp of Dreams, and Young Chicago Authors. In her previous lives she has also worked with the Hill-Stead Museum and the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, and served as co-editor for the Columbia Poetry Review 21. Her poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Caduceus, Warpland Journal, and Beltway Quarterly Online.
She received her B.M. from Howard University and her M.F.A. from Columbia College Chicago. Although she remains a resident of Chicago, she will always be an east coast girl at heart.
More Info about this mentor
Avri Coleman
Mentor
A 27 year old music producer and graphic designer from the south side of Chicago, Avri's passion for music has been with him since birth.
Avri decided in 2001 that he would use that passion to create music and started Avi-Tone Productions while in school at Morgan State University. On a 2002 road trip to Baltimore, MD with two friends, the three decided to try their hand at nightlife marketing and formed a promotional, So Chi.
At So Chi, Avri acted as Creative Director and Brand Manager (a talent that Avri found to come naturally), designing all of So Chi’s flyers, e-flyers, posters, and websites.
Avri continued to design for SonyBMG, Mecca Clothing, Interscope, DuSable Museum, Arista, Crocodile Lounge, Aliza, Bombay Sapphire, J Records, and Bacardi USA.
More Info about this mentor
Jamela Dewberry
Cyber Navigator
Jamela Dewberry is a Chicago Native, living in the city and in the South Suburbs most of her life. The oldest of three children, Jamela learned at an early age how to take charge and be responsible. As a young child she loved to play sports, dance, draw, and do arts and crafts. This inner drive she had and creativity led to her playing sports, praise dancing for church, and creating personal works of art.
Because she learned early how to be responsible and use her talents in various ways, Jamela has loved working with youth and people. She has had several managerial positions in the Restaurant/Food chain industry, she has worked as a receptionist and data entry clerk and various Universities and has had an opportunity to work as a teaching assistant with small children. She also at times has been known to juggle two or more jobs while attending school. She credits her mother for her strong work ethic and God for her gifts.
When not working or going to Cosmetology school, Jamela enjoys spending time on the computer and playing with her puppy Brandee.
More Info about this mentor
JoVia Armstrong
Music Mentor
From Detroit, Michigan, hails percussionist JoVia Ljiljana Armstrong. JoVia began studying percussion as a high school freshman. By her senior year, she was section leader in the symphony orchestra, the symphony band, the concert band, the percussion ensemble, and the jazz orchestra. Throughout the week and weekend, she was a percussionist in the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra, the Wayne State University Honors Band, and the Charles Post Military Band.
She enrolled at Michigan State University as a percussionist performance major, where she continued to perform and study orchestral percussion (including four-mallet marimba/vibraphone). She studied African Cuban percussion and drum set with performer and educator Francisco Mora-Catlett, African drumming and dance, Latin jazz, and also Korean drumming. She transferred to Columbia College Chicago and earned a B.A. in Music Business.
JoVia played Cajon (box drum) for the “Tour of the Americas 2004.” The group performed original and traditional songs of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Argentina. JoVia has performed with various artists such as British recording artist Omar, Chilean artist Joe VasConcellos, Philadelphia native RES, Alison Crockett, Angela Johnson, Maysa, Rahsaan Patterson, Eric Robeson, Gordon Chambers, Warren Hill, Conya Doss, Yolanda Johnson, flautist Nicole Mitchell, saxophonist David Boykin, Maya Azucena, bluesmen Billy Branch and Ron Prince, Althea Rene, Brian O'Neal, Lola Morales, Blackman & Arnold, Level Rizon, Cello, Nadir, Ed Stone, Painted Pictures, Wendell Harrison, Pamela Wise, BSTC, Mathias, Inohs Sivad, and Heather Moran. She has opened shows for such acts as Talib Kweli, The Executioners, Kindred the Family Soul, Thomas Mapfumo, Gerald Albright, and The Bad Plus. She has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Amp Fiddler, Angela Johnson, Frank McComb, Trey Anastacio, Jazzhead, and Michael Franti & Spearhead.
To further her musical studies, she developed a hobby of writing music and audio production. This hobby soon turned into career as she is now writing and producing for various artists including her jazz group Musique Noire based in Detroit. They have been nominated for several Detroit Music Awards in 2009 and 2010 for Outstanding World/ Jazz Group and Outstanding World/ Jazz Album. JoVia was nominated for an individual award- Outstanding World/ Reggae Musician. She released her debut album Fuzzy Blue Robe Chronicles in 2009.
More Info about this mentor
Marcus Lumpkin
Mentor
The only times you won't see Marcus Lumpkin riding his bike to work at YOUmedia are on the days he's in the middle of a good book. That's when he takes the L, so he can eek out a bit more precious reading time.
Marcus joined the YOUmedia mentor staff after working at the Chicago Public Library’s South Chicago Branch. And he biked to work there, too. At the South Chicago Branch, Marcus created children’s story times, developed afterschool programs, and served local organizations by extending the Library’s services and resources to neighborhood schools and organizations. In the past, Marcus taught preschool and substituted in Chicago Public Schools.
Marcus studied at Wayne State University in Detroit and completed his English literature degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
In YOUmedia, he puts that background in literature to work by leading teens in the library's Teen Volume book discussion. Marcus reads furiously to keep up with the teens at YOUmedia and their varied interests. Marcus identifies most with gamers, fiction readers, and cyclists.
Cycling is a great way to start a conversation with Marcus, but he will probably end up talking to you about what he’s reading. He has a passion for learning, literature, and the library.