Published on April 28, 2022

Jashayla Pettigrew is a senior from St. Louis, Missouri double majoring in journalism and Women’s and Gender Studies. She’s been co-coordinator of an on-campus program called Diversity Peer Educators since May 2020, after initially joining as a general body member in the spring of 2019. Through her role in planning and leading facilitations alongside other DPEs, she has helped educate hundreds of people on how to make MU a more equitable place for students, staff and faculty. In her time as a journalism student, she has studied in London, England. There, she was an editorial intern for Black Beauty & Hair magazine. In this role, she wrote for the print and digital magazine. She also worked alongside the editor-in-chief to write cover blurbs, prepare questions for interviewees, find visuals for the articles and more. Since adding Women’s and Gender Studies as a second major during her junior year, she has conducted research on issues affecting people with “non-normative” bodies. Her most recent research project focuses on the surveillance tactics of different social media websites, and what those tactics mean depending on one’s gender and sexuality. Jashayla is also a culture editor for Vox Magazine and a Brooks scholar. She plans to use her degrees to continue advocating for Black women, and writing for a publication that focuses on her passions for music, fashion, art and TV.