DePauw University Posse Scholar Greisy Genao.

DePauw Scholar Strives to Make a Difference Through Art

Winter 2017 | New York

Greisy Genao, DePauw University Posse Scholar, is a junior majoring in English writing with a minor in film studies. Greisy loves to create through poetry, plays and film, and one day hopes to use her passion to create art and media that better represent the communities to which she belongs. Born to parents from the Dominican Republic, she credits the Posse Scholarship as the reason she is able to attend college.

“I want to see my mother's story,” says Greisy. “I want to see poetry about feeling stuck between two languages yet belonging to neither. I want to see movies where the main characters share my experience. Representation matters. And my hope is that young people will see my work and feel like they are not alone in their experiences.”

The work I do on campus reflects goals Posse instills in us from day one.

Greisy is a winner of DePauw’s First-Year Seminar Essay contest, and is an assistant director for this year’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan with DePauw Theatre. As a freshman, she started Justice Thursdays, a photo campaign dedicated to raising awareness around social justice issues that affect DePauw’s campus.

Greisy says, “A lot of the work I do on campus reflects the goals that The Posse Foundation instills in us from day one — the most important being to be a tool of change on our campus.”

At the end of her freshman year, Greisy received the Rising Activist Award for her organizing work with upperclassmen to pass DePauw’s first privilege, power, and diversity course requirement. “This course requirement allows students to see their identities represented in the curriculum,” Greisy says.

Greisy is a member of the student social justice group Feminista!, the secretary, public relations, and community service chair of her sorority, and the president of the Multicultural Greek Council. She is also a Bonner Scholar and a Compton Center for Peace and Justice Intern.