Barb Clauer (she/her), a Lansing Community College English professor since 2001, is founder/director of the LCC Community-Generated Poetry Project. In 2017 she was inspired by a poetry conference session and created what evolved into the LCC Poetry Project. Barb sees this as a culmination of decades of classroom teaching, and her worldview at the core of her own teaching and learning: working collaboratively, being open, lifting up each others’ voices, and really listening to what emerges.
Melissa Kaplan (she/her) is a multidisciplinary producer and podcast host (Inside LCC and Galaxy Forum on LCC Connect). She serves as Arts Outreach and Academic Coordinator at Lansing Community College. Since 2018, her work has centered developing collaborative projects using the arts and other disciplines to explore and educate on a wide range of social issues such as climate change, mental health, incarceration and homelessness.