SCHOLARSHIPS
The Dr. Joan Shelley W. Fernandez scholarship is a living legacy for the benefit of a Lesbian to attend Brooklyn College in order to graduate in the two year MFA degree in Theater Directing.
The Dr. Joan W. Fernandez Point Scholarship
The Dr. Joan Shelley W. Fernandez scholarship will enable a talented and gifted Lesbian aspiring to be a theater director to graduate with the MFA degree without the severe hardships and prejudice of the past. She will be the link of continuity to fulfill the dream of Dr. Fernandez in becoming a theater director and in that sense will indeed become her spiritual daughter.
Dr. Fernandez was born in Brooklyn New York and attended Brooklyn College for her Freshman and Sophomore years and left to further study and work "hands on" in New York City theater. She attended the American Theater Wing, Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop of the New School of Social Research, was a Directing apprentice under Lee Strasberg as well as an assistant stage manager in Margaret Webster's Shakespeare Company in Woodstock New York. She graduated from SRT( the School of Radio and Television Technique) and landed a job as floor manager at Dumont television children's program Captain Video. However her great dream was to direct for the Broadway stage and opera. Unable to achieve this dream because of gender discrimination at that time, she left for California where she received a B.A degree from Mills College in Speech and Drama, the M.A. degree from San Francisco State University in Theater Arts and a PHD degree from Walden University.
Along with directing and stage managing community theater in San Francisco and Marin County, Dr. Fernandez has used her directing skills as a catalyst for change. Highlights include: Founder of Our Lady of Guadalupe Health Center (for the disenfranchised of Daly City, California,) Co-founder of La Casa de las Madres (the first shelter for battered women in the United States located in San Francisco,) National Board member of the National Organization for Women serving 2 terms, President of San Francisco N.O.W. Board member Shanti Project and President of the Board of Directors of C.U.R.A.S (Community United in Response to Aids-Sida.)She is the Founder and tour leader of the Cuban Aid Society which takes medicine to Cuba with permission of the U.S. Treasury Department.