Like most media professionals, I live my life in a perpetual "go to go" mentality and a to-do list that never ends. What makes me different? Passion. It drives everything I do and will do. Strange? Slightly, but I figure if there isn't a personal connection of some sort why bother. I'm a proud 2010 Hampton University graduate. At my "Home By The Sea" I studied broadcast journalism with a minor in business management. I graduated with both university and departmental honors
Aside from my passion driven life, as previously mentioned I'm a diverse media professional with experience in journalism (TV, radio and print), public relations and new media. Like many others in my field, I have lived and worked all over the country—D.C., Phoenix, Detroit and Cincinnati. The highlight of my young career is my summer spent interning in Detroit. I discovered in my three-month awakening that Detroit would become my life’s work and sole focus. I literally cannot have a conversation with someone without mentioning Detroit that is how much I love the city.
My time spent at Columbia will further support my professional and research endeavors. My thesis in the oral history program focuses on African-American history and culture. It is a multimedia project that leads to my doctoral dissertation at Michigan State University, where I will pursue an additional masters, as well as, a doctorate in African-American studies with concentrations in Public Policy and Film. Academically, my areas of research cover the span of a century starting with the Great Migration in 1917 and ending with the neo rebirth of civil rights in 2017. The pinnacle will be the riots of 1943, 1965, 1967, 1968 and 1992.
My overall goal is to be the quintessential game changer--an elected official in Michigan with plans to revitalize Detroit; a business owner with a philanthropic arm to help educate and serve the people and a college professor teaching classes on African-American history, urban development and cultural analysis.
All in all, by the time I turn 30, I can be addressed as Dr. Joyce-Zoë Farley.