Seventy University of Dayton students captured the experiences and challenges of living in Dayton by interviewing local residents as part of a national community storytelling project intended to bring awareness about local human rights issues to inspire social action

Gallagher, Clare

English

University of Dayton

University of Dayton eCommons College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom College of Arts and Sciences Administration 10-17-2017 The Facing Project Clare Gallagher University of Dayton Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cas_blog eCommons Citation Gallagher, Clare, "The Facing Project" (2017). College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom. 150. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cas_blog/150 This Blog is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences Administration at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact mschlangen1@udayton.edu, ecommons@udayton.edu. 1/3The Facing Projectudayton.edu/blogs/artssciences/2017-stories/17-10-17-facing-project.phpTuesday October 17, 2017Seventy University of Dayton students captured the experiences and challenges of living inDayton by interviewing local residents as part of a national community storytelling projectintended to bring awareness about local human rights issues to inspire social action.The University’s Fitz Center for Leadership in Community brought the “Facing Project” toDayton in partnership with Citywide Development and several Dayton neighborhoodassociations, with support from an Ohio Campus Compact grant.The project, Facing Dayton: Neighborhood Narratives, will be a book of 30 stories fromDayton residents, scheduled to be published this spring. The project also has a visualcomponent, a poster exhibition reflecting the stories in the book open through Nov. 17 at theDayton Metro Library, 215 E. Third St., in downtown Dayton. The opening reception is 5 to 8p.m. Friday, Oct. 20.Fitz Center graduate assistant Alexa Irwin, who is working on her master’s degree in thedepartment of psychology, said the project allowed students to engage with neighborhoodassociations to meet with residents and share stories about the neighborhoods.“It’s just such a great collaborative project that has a long extensive vision for positivechange,” Irwin said.Most of the student writers were involved through their English classes. Some others werevolunteers from the Roesch Library’s Write Place, which helps students improve their writing,including Emily Biery, a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio.“I thought it would be really cool to have a platform for hearing other people’s stories justbecause I love talking to people and finding out what their life is like,” Biery said.2/3The students went through writing, sensitivity and Dayton history training before meetingcommunity members. In March, there was a social event with all the writers and storytellersso the students could get to know the community members. The students later met one-on-one with their storytellers, wrote the story, edited it and submitted it to the department ofEnglish faculty before the end of the spring semester.Misty Thomas-Trout, assistant professor of graphic design, applied for the ExperientialLearning Innovation Fund and organized the poster exhibition along with her students.“I think a lot of times the University of Dayton is kind of a tight-knit community that remains intheir bubble on campus,” Thomas-Trout said. “This project in Typography Two allows for thestudents to do community-based design which impacts the local Dayton community.”The Fitz Center conducted an extensive dialogue with community leaders and membersabout the topic the students should focus on. Irwin said the consensus was to focus onneighborhood change.The Fitz Center worked with neighborhood association leaders to identify individuals in theirneighborhoods with stories to tell. Many of the subjects have lived in Dayton for decades andhave seen their neighborhoods’ gradual change from childhood to the present.The two biggest injustices the students identified when reading the stories were racism andfood deserts. Other problems referenced in the stories are drug abuse and poverty.Meeting with the Dayton community members also served as a mentoring opportunity for theyounger students, who were paired with upper classmen.The poster exhibition is also an opportunity for the design students, who rarely get theopportunity to show their work in galleries. Out of the 30 stories, 25 will be represented in theexhibition.“I was really interested in the students engaging with the community more and learning howto express typography through the narrative of someone else that has lived here,” Thomas-Trout said.Currently, all of the stories have been collected. Thomas-Trout is in the process of designingthe book in collaboration with illustrator Carolyn Kay Chema, graphic design andphotography media facilities coordinator in the department of art and design.“The final idea is to bring awareness and action to any issues that come forward in thestories,” Irwin said. “So the last stage is to how can these stories influence positive change inDayton.”The Fitz Center hopes to identify issues and bring awareness that will result in action.3/3The Facing Project is a nonprofit started in 2011 in Muncie, Indiana. The organization’smodel to share stories and raise awareness is in cities across the U.S. focused on topicssuch as poverty, sex trafficking, mental health, immigration and others. Facing Project storiesare compiled into books and on the web for a community resource, used to inspire art,photography, monologues and community-wide awareness, dialogue, action and changetoward a more understanding and empathetic society.- Clare Gallagher ’181/13  

The Facing Project

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