Check out the Charlotte Magazine article about us!
Certification in Social Justice and Community Organizing
This non-academic certification program at Queens University equips participants with political education and practical skills to effectively organize for social change. Participants are equipped with the knowledge and skills to bring together their communities around areas of common concern, build power, influence community decisions and create just outcomes in the various personal and professional contexts in which they work and live.Description: A ten-week program to train and equip participants with the education and practical skills to effectively organize social justice in their individualized contexts.
Locally and Nationally Recognized Speakers – Each week, participants learn online from experienced BIPOC speakers who are leaders within the social justice & community organizing space.
Praxis Organizing Project – Participants engage in self-directed organizing project or internship of their choosing.
Microgrants – Overseen by a BIPOC decision-making body, this microgrant fund serves as an equity measure embedded in the SJCO Certification program, shifting financial resources to local, grassroots, neighborhood, and BIPOC-led organizing for social justice in Charlotte. Awardees applied for community groups to stimulate community action, lead community organizing, and short-term projects. These are bottom-up efforts that support great grassroots ideas!
Mentorship – Participants are matched with experienced mentors who, through group and one-to-one meetings, support participants in discerning how to integrate the praxis project or micro-internship into their learning and connect them with additional opportunities in organizing.
Culminating Event – A culminating in-person seminar and final event. As part of our praxis, participants organize a public event to apply and demonstrate the skills learned in this course.
Cohort Four Dates Fall 2026
One day in person retreat, Saturday, September 26th 9 am - 5 pm
Meets online Tuesday nights starting September 29th 7 - 8:30 pm
Graduation Celebration Dinner Thursday, December 17th, 5-9 pm
The application process for the 2026 Cohort is not yet open.
Please contact certification manager Holly Roach for questions hroach2@queens.edu
Meet Our Teaching Team
Dr. Jimmeka Anderson
Dr. Jimmeka Anderson is a postdoctoral fellow at CIRCLE at Tufts University focusing on projects related to media, youth, and democracy. Dr. Anderson received her Ph.D. from the Curriculum and Instruction-Urban Education program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her Master’s degree in Educational Media with a focus on New Media Literacies at Appalachian State University. Her research interests include critical digital media literacies among historically marginalized youth, and she has focused her professional development efforts on addressing digital inequity in urban communities.
While serving as the Founder and Executive Director of I AM not the MEdia, Inc. for over ten years, she developed curriculum and award-winning community programs that empower youth through media literacy and media creation. Dr. Anderson is the creator of the Black Girls Film Camp and also serves as a Program Fellow for New America and an advisor for the American Library Association (ALA) Media Literacy in Libraries for Adult Audiences initiative. From 2020 to 2023, Dr. Anderson was the Project Manager for the National Association of Media Literacy Education's Cyber Citizenship Initiative.
Additionally, Dr. Anderson has served as a consultant for media literacy education to national organizations, including the Women’s Sports Foundation and 9 Story Media Group. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D. degree, she worked for the public library for ten years as an Outreach Coordinator and as a media literacy course Instructor with the Carolina School of Broadcasting. Dr. Anderson's book, Power Lines: Connecting with teens in urban communities through media literacy, was published in August 2022 by ALA New Editions with co-author Kelly Czarnecki.
Holly Roach
Holly Roach serves as scholar-activist at Queens University of Charlotte and co-facilitates the Social Justice and Community Organizing (SJCO) Certification Program. She served as co-designer and researcher for The Listening Project, which helped inform the certification program’s development.
Holly’s background is in social change which she then bolstered with two MA degrees in Social Justice & Community Organizing from Prescott College and Contemplative Education from Naropa University.
Rabbi Judith Schindler
Rabbi Judy Schindler is co-founder of the program and Queens University faculty liaison and administrator. Rabbi Schindler is Sklut Professor of Jewish Studies at Queens University Charlotte. She is also Executive Director of Spill the Honey Foundation that serves as the national hub producing arts and educational content that empowers the Black-Jewish alliance today in combating antisemitism and racism. Rabbi Judy served as founding Director of the Stan Greenspon Holocaust and Social Justice Education Center at Queens University from 2016-2024. She was named Rabbi Emerita of Temple Beth El in Charlotte, North Carolina, after serving as Senior Rabbi from 2003-2016 and as Associate Rabbi from 1998-2003. Prior to coming to Charlotte, she was an Associate Rabbi at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York.
Dr. LaDarius Thompson
LaDarius Thompson is an accomplished educator, leadership developer, event planner, and, most recently, published author. Dr. Thompson, more affectionately known as Dr. T, currently serves as the Center of Academic Community Engagement Director, playing a pivotal role in helping the Queens live our motto, “Not to be served, but to serve.”
Dr. T is passionate about creating opportunities for the growth and education of students and has proven this through an extensive list of accomplishments and generated programs for students throughout his professional work.
Before joining the Queens University of Charlotte, he served as the Associate Director for Civic Engagement and Fraternity & Sorority Life at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). While there, Dr. T advised 42 chapters and led the consolidation of seven student governing councils, including an international council with one of VCU’s campuses in the Middle East, to form a student governing organization advocating for over 32,000 students on over six campuses. In addition, he created an online student engagement platform that houses the activities of over 540 student organizations and engages over 60,000 campus and local community members. His work experience also includes working in student engagement and development at the University of South Carolina Upstate, the University of New Haven, and Wesley College. Dr. T earned his Doctor of Education in Leadership from Virginia Commonwealth University. He also earned a Master of Science in mental health counseling from Pace University in NYC and a Bachelor of Arts in nonprofit leadership from the University of South Carolina Upstate. Dr. T is a proud member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.
Rev. Dr. Stefan Weathers
Rev. Dr. Stefan Weathers, Sr. is a writer, preacher, organizer, public theologian, and anti-racism practitioner passionate about social justice, civic engagement, leadership development, and community transformation. He currently serves as the Program Manager for Young Adult Engagement at Democracy North Carolina, a non-profit, nonpartisan statewide voting rights advocacy organization. In this capacity he directs the Democracy Summer Internship Program open to North Carolina college students, as well as the Bridge Fellowship Program open to young adults (18-29) not enrolled in college and who don't have a college degree. This aligns with his passion to help develop the next generation of democracy and justice advocates. In addition, as an American Baptist Churches, USA ordained minister, his faith informs his advocacy work with Democracy North Carolina to ensure democracy is realized for all North Carolinians. This advocacy work also continues to be informed by his training anti-racist culture and organization building.
Dr. Weathers was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he also currently resides. Upon graduating from Garinger High School (International Studies School), he went off to college at North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and English-writing. He also earned a Master of Divinity from Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, NY and a Doctor of Ministry from Duke University Divinity School. His dissertation was entitled The Anti-Racist Church: Freeing American Churches from the “religion of whiteness” to embrace the Image of Jesus and Social Transformation.
Dr. Weathers is also the co-founder and co-pastor, along with his lovely wife, of a new church plant called Impact Church Charlotte. Their core values are radical love and inclusivity, and their motto is that we are all created not curated, meaning we don't have to create a persona, appearance, speech pattern, or hide our identities. We were already uniquely created to be our authentic selves even in a world that demands our conformity to its broken ways.
He truly believes in the sentiments expressed by both Maya Aneglou and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that "No one of us can be free until everybody is free," and "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." So let's all get free together!