Mission Statement

   Altas Voces ("Powerful Voices") is Mission College's Scholars Speaker Program which offers faculty, staff, students, and the community an opportunity for cultural, intellectual, and spiritual enrichment beyond the classroom. The Scholars Speakers Program offers the students expanded opportunities to gain greater insights and depth of understanding of important issues, and to interact personally with a wide range of men and women who are shapers and critics of our society. At least two major speakers are hosted by the Diversity Committee each semester.

Fall 2001: Armenian Poet Shahe Mankerian - October 25, 2001 - "Acclaimed poet Shahe Manerkian is a talented and versatile poet. The topics he writes about range from unrequited love to the Armenian Genocide. The evening will be an introduction to his poetry."

November 26th: Wanda Coleman, American Academy of Poets  author of Bathwater Wine , winner of the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. A former medical secretary, magazine editor, journalist and scriptwriter

"- after Robert Duncan" (by Wanda Coleman)

my earliest dreams linger/wronged spirits
who will not rest/dusky crows astride
the sweetbriar seek to fly the
orchard's sky. is this the world i loved?
groves of perfect oranges and streets of stars
where the sad eyes of my youth
wander the atomic-age paradise