From the Dance Studio to the World Stage: Noah Harris Leads with Bowie Bold Purpose

Before Noah M.P. Harris helped set the agenda for one of the world's largest sisterhoods, she was the only freshman on a dance team, learning to find her voice in a dark studio at Bowie State. This past summer, that voice carried her to a stage in Las Vegas, where delegates elected her International Second Vice President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, becoming an international officer for an organization of more than 390,000 members while she remains a full-time undergraduate. 

Harris, a senior criminal justice major with a concentration in social justice and a minor in dance movement studies, traces her leadership back to a string of firsts. Arriving at Bowie State at 17 as an only child from four hours away, she joined The Collective, the university's student-run pre-professional dance company, as the lone freshman on the roster.  

“That gave me the push to see, OK, what else can I do?”  

That question led her to Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Eta Chapter, where members initiated her in 2024, and to Bowie State's NAACP Unit in 2025. 

Within Eta Chapter, Harris moved quickly from chaplain to secretary to chapter president, a role members elected her to in 2025 and again in 2026.  

“I realized that governance and chapter operations were something that really interested me.”  

Through her work with the sorority and the NAACP chapter, she helped register fellow students to vote and walk out-of-state peers through the process of casting a ballot away from home.  

“The impact all around — that's something I'm grateful for, looking back.”  

Alpha Kappa Alpha's Leadership Fellows program, a competitive seminar that selected Harris from a pool of applicants, sharpened those instincts further, teaching her to build a resume, prepare for interviews and lead with intention. Watching the sorority's undergraduate leadership up close, she said, changed how she saw herself.  

“These women, they're undergraduates, but they're so mature — they have these bright ideas, they're so poised.” I want to be a part of this.”  

Encouraged by her mother, a member of more than 25 years, Harris began the long process of certifying for international office, ultimately connecting across all 10 of the sorority's regions to share her platform before her election at the 72nd Boulé in Las Vegas. 

Harris credits several people at Bowie State with preparing her for that moment, including Professor Sharon Theodore Lewis, her academic advisor and also a sorority sister whose professionalism became a model for her own.  

“The way she carried herself just made sense.”  

She also pointed to Dr. Truly Davis, The Collective's late faculty advisor, who pushed a shy, soft-spoken freshman to use her voice through dance, and to Greek Life coordinator Jonathan Macer, who gave her early opportunities to speak on panels. A required public speaking class she almost didn't take, she said, turned out to be foundational. 

That leadership pipeline runs through Bowie State's own investment in her future. Through the university's criminal justice department, the Fannie Angelos Scholars Program at the University of Baltimore School of Law accepted her, connecting her with one-on-one LSAT tutoring, attorney shadowing opportunities and a growing network in the legal field. She is taking the LSAT next month. 

“Bowie gave me the opportunity, and now I'm connected in the legal world.”  

Long term, Harris plans to become an attorney and eventually open a studio that pairs dance therapy with advocacy for children in underserved communities and families navigating the legal system. 

Amid the titles, Harris said family remains her constant. She talks with her mother, father and grandmother nearly every day, and credits her aunt and sorority sister Candace Avents with encouraging her to keep dancing years before she found her footing. Free time, when she finds it, means late nights in the Fine and Performing Arts Center dance studio with her Collective sisters, creating bulletin boards (she’s an RA on campus) or hunting outdoors with her father.  

“He's also one of my best friends.” 

As International Second Vice President, Harris will spend the coming years advancing Alpha Kappa Alpha's international programming across target areas that include educational support, advocacy and family services, while serving as a direct line between undergraduate members and the sorority's board of directors under the sorority’s international president and CEO. She'll do it while finishing her final term as Eta Chapter president through December and preparing for law school, a balance she says is possible because Bowie State's campus has always felt like an extension of her sisterhood. 

For Harris, that balance is what Bowie Bold looks like in practice.  

“Moving with confidence, moving with intention, moving with excellence.   

Bowie State is the first and oldest HBCU in Maryland, and I'm a first for a lot of things, too. It's about not being afraid to evolve while still honoring the legacy that came before us, and being bold in our leadership, our sisterhood, our service and our presence.”