Digital Commons Network^™

The Green Infrastructure Network: Mapping Hopewell's Social & Natural Assets, Derek J. Cathcart

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

This capstone plan provides a map of the network of physical green infrastructure (GI) and the actors involved in GI projects in Hopewell. Green Infrastructure is mapped spatially with GIS and distinguishes between the various forms of GI present in the city. A network map visualizes the relationships between actors and their relationships with GI in Hopewell. This plan analyzes Hopewell’s GI network of social-ecological assets and their relative interactions. While the capstone plan is not a resilience plan on its own, it fosters resilience in Hopewell by connecting actors like city departments, state agencies, residents, business owners, and local …

Food For Thought: Rituals In Place Based Learning, Natalia Pilato

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In my mother’s kitchen lasting bonds among family, friends, and newcomers are created. Using that space as a point of departure, I explore the significance of pedagogical places outside of classrooms that serve as flavorful ingredients for performative and participatory learning. This article articulates ways in which rituals associated with Sicilian cultural traditions are interwoven and complicit in establishing dispositions for socially engaged learning and teaching in the arts, showing how an ethic of care can transcend generations. With a focus on place-based learning, making art and enjoying food are investigated to show how healthy productive relationships, appreciation for beauty, …

Creating Commons: Photovoice Philosophy In A Third Space, Jason M. Cox, Lynne Hamer

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Teach Toledo is a program that the authors co-coordinate using community assets to create a third space to confront systemic racism’s impact on teacher education programs and facilitate hybridity (Bhaba, 1994). Diverse student cohort members use their lived experience as the base for their individual and shared urban educational philosophies, coordinated in a first-year horizontally and vertically integrated curriculum including written compositions and a PhotoVoice project. “Creating commons” refers not only to provision of a third space as a common space where private experiences can be combined to create a hybrid, new understanding, but also to the creative act of …

Intersect- On The Corner Of Princess Anne And William, Madison M. Goff

Theses and Dissertations

After a worldwide pandemic, perspectives towards personal space and private quarters have shifted. Social distancing procedures during COVID-19 altered the use of space, even after vaccinations have been administered. After limits on large gatherings and keeping 6 feet away from each other, what is the expectation that people hold now when in public?

Research will include interviewing the intended user groups (students and travelers), designers who are familiar with hospitality and hostel design, and hospitality professionals. The perspective on private and public space has shifted after the pandemic, so a survey will target hostel age groups that could help understand …

Crafting Community: A Ceramics Center, Nadia Mechboukh

Theses and Dissertations

For artisans, being part of a community can facilitate engaging with the public. Networking and collaborating with peers are vital for building meaningful relationships that can lead to mutual inspiration and learning opportunities. By strengthening the connection between society and various forms of craft, we can weave invisible threads that link the stories that craft tells with the time and place in which they were created. Pottery is a craft that has existed for thousands of years. Ceramics and clay have carried the history of communities and their ways of living through centuries and have been used as identifiers of …

Relational Ecologies: Artistic Engagement And Mentorship Of Adults In Community Spaces, Rebecca Bourgault

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In this article, I share insights from research and experience working as a teaching artist and mentor inside and outside traditional institutions. I investigate how relational and contemplative pedagogies promote and sustain authentic relationships of reciprocity. Narrating recent experiments with mentoring practices that emerged from the cultural landscapes of adults engaged in arts learning, the paper highlights new connections discovered through a research model borrowed from intuitive inquiry. Findings are presented as reflective stories, journal entries, or field notes gathered while mentoring graduate art education students and participating in a community of practice in the visual arts. The article demonstrates …

Mending Art Classrooms: An Exploration Of The Benefits Of Collaborative Artmaking For Underinvested Black Youth In Richmond, Virginia, Jazmine M. Beatty

Theses and Dissertations

This arts-informed research study explored the experiences of local community artists and educators working to radically transform and heal the experiences of underinvested Black students in Richmond through collaborative arts engagement. Through a series of seven one-on-one interviews with Black teaching artists in the Richmond community, I was able to uncover how collaboration has and can continue to improve the well-being and livelihoods of Black students in Richmond. Also, by tapping into the local Mending Walls mural project, I was able to make a tangible connection between the Richmond community, art, and collaboration. An analysis of the interviews led to …

Norfolk Scope Community Plan, Michael D. Nixon-Garrison

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

The purpose of the Norfolk Scope Community Plan is to provide the client, the City of Norfolk’s Department of City Planning, with a plan for revitalization of the community surrounding the Norfolk Scope Complex. The plan includes three potential redevelopment scenarios, along with general recommendations for areawide enhancements, both of which the client could potentially use to guide small area planning for the community in the future. The Scope is a multi-functioning entertainment complex located in the heart of Downtown Norfolk, Virginia and includes the Scope Arena, an 11,000-seat venue for concert and sporting events, Chrysler Hall, a performing arts …

Drowning In Our Tears, Kelley-Ann A. Lindo

Theses and Dissertations

Drowning in our Tears is a series of works – installation, print media, and sculpture that explores themes of precarity, ephemerality, collective memory, and vulnerability. The need to create and preserve an archive has been the of the driving forces behind the works. I am interested in this notion of creating new language and perspectives from past trauma and hardships. The archive presents us with a site where excavation of meaning can occur, identities preserved, and new identities formed. In my work, I try to bridge the gaps, using the fragments of memory, the past and present experiences to create …

Design Hub: Activating Community By Design, Ed Williams

Theses and Dissertations

MOTIVATION

At the turn of the century, Robert Putnam (2000, 27) wrote “...a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current.” Putnam is describing a loss of “social capital” throughout American society. Research suggests that many of our contemporary issues are the result of a decline in “social capital,” or “community.”

This pervasive lack of community is thought to be detrimental to “educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health …

Blue Zones And Longevity, Edward F. Ansello

Director's Editorials from Age in Action

We can embrace the generalizable characteristics of Blue Zones: a plant-based diet, friendships, spiritual or religious grounding, awareness of and immersion in our community, physical activity as a regular, normalized part of our daily routine, and, more philosophically, an opening up to our own sense of place and purpose.

Cultivating A Democratic Community In The Elementary Art Classroom, Kelly Fergus

Theses and Dissertations

Cultivating a more socially just, democratic classroom community is a best pedagogical practices qualitative case study. This study is designed to explore how three Virginia elementary art teachers define and create a democratic classroom community, inside their art rooms, through the implementation of various instructional strategies within the physical, social-cultural, and pedagogical spaces of their classrooms. Such instructional strategies may include a shift in power dynamics, student-centered art, choice-based art, and a big idea/real-world issue-orientated curriculum (ex: visual culture, social justice, democratic pedagogies). Each of the three selected participants were interviewed and asked to describe their classroom practices as well …

Relational Aesthetics: Creativity In The Inter-Human Sphere, Carl Patow

Theses and Dissertations

RELATIONAL AESTHETICS: CREATIVITY IN THE INTER-HUMAN SPHERE

By Carl Patow, MD, MPH, MBA

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Fine Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019.

Major Director: Pamela Taylor Turner, Associate Professor, Kinetic Imaging, VCU Arts

Relational Art was first described as an art movement in Nicolas Bourriaud’s catalogue for the exhibition Traffic in 1995, and in an eponymous book in 1998. He observed that contemporary artists were shifting the focus of their work away from creating objects of spectacle to interaction with viewers through dialogue. Examination of a sample …

The Unity Mural: Bridging Communities Through Artmaking, Margaret A. Walker

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

A visual essay of a community based art education mural between two universities and a local community, following a tragic hate crime.

An Assessment Of Health Disparities Among A Community Sample Of Lgbq College Students, Ashlee Sawyer, Paul Perrin, Eric Benotsch

Psychology Publications

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals are a marginalized population in the United States, and this status places them at a greater risk for adverse health outcomes, such as tobacco and substance use, obesity, cancer, sexually-transmitted infections, violence, mental health issues, and suicide. The present study used individual- and microsystem-level data from the American College Health Association (ACHA)-National College Health Assessment (NCHA) to compose a risk assessment for LGBQ students at a mid-Atlantic university. The study incorporated various levels of the ecological social model in an analysis of potentially influential factors on the development of LGBQ health disparities. 856 …

Capturing The Ephemeral, Caroline L. J. Matteson

Theses and Dissertations

Music, it has been shown, has the potential to both create social cohesion and encourage conflict resolution (Koelsch, Offermanns, & Franzke, 2010). In a city with deep roots in slavery, music may be more powerful than language or the toppling of monuments to help create a cultural identity that every demographic can fit. Not only can music improve mood in an individual, but musical contagion affects large groups at once. Creating a space to equalize access to and share the experience of music—both making and appreciation—would give the city an opportunity for reconciliation and community bonding.

While a universal quality …

#Mobilephotonow: Two Art Worlds, One Hashtag, Jodi Kushins

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In the winter of 2015, the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) co-curated an exhibition with the loose-knit mobile photography collective known as JJ Community. #MobilePhotoNow included images created in response to a series of prompts and shared on the photo sharing and social networking application Instagram®. The exhibition reflected a community-based curatorial practice (Keys & Ballengee-Morris, 2001) demonstrating new possibilities for participatory art and culture in the age of social media. This portrait of how the project came to be is presented as an example of how art world factions might be brought together, in both virtual and real spaces, …

Why Service-Learning?, Audrey Trussell, Katie Elliott

Division of Community Engagement Resources

Data from VCU's "High Impact Practices (HIPS) Assessment Model: 2015-16 Pilot Mid-Year Report" offers three compelling reasons for why service-learning matters for student success.

2015-2016 Service-Learning Impact Measure Report, Samantha Poelstra

Division of Community Engagement Resources

The VCU Service-Learning Office distributes the Service-Learning Impact Measure (SLIM) at the end of every semester to evaluate the impact of service-learning classes on student learning. Results are used to guide professional development opportunities, as well as to further improve the quality of and recruit additional tenure-line faculty members to teach designated service-learning classes.

Different Tools For Different Tasks: Strategies For Assessing Student Learning From Civic Engagement At The Student, Program, And Institutional Levels, Lynn E. Pelco

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This presentation was given at the SCHEV Civic Engagement Education and Assessment meeting on June 9, 2017.

2015-16 Service-Learning Impact Measure Report (Infographic), Audrey Trussell, Katie Elliott

Division of Community Engagement Resources

No abstract provided.

Gomds - Grumpy Old Men Doing Shakespeare; The Comedy Of Errors As Metaphor For Life, Aging, And Building Community, Elizabeth B. Pedersen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the process of building community over time, through collaboration, to rehearse and produce a portable production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, looking at the elements of time, trust and age with an ensemble of ten men, all actors over the age of 55. The building of trust over time was vital to the production process and the actors had the time to embody their roles and the language of the play. We look at the questions “why this play,” “why all men?” and “why theatre?” and investigate the physical nature of the play and its …

Answering The Question, "To What End?": Building A System Of Enterprise Data Measurement To Track And Assess Our Engagement With And Impact On Our Communities, Valerie Holton

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This was presented at the Florida Campus Compact held February 8-10, 2016.

Smarter, Better, Stronger Together: Working In Community-University Partnerships, Valerie Holton

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This presentation was facilitated by Valerie Holton at Florida Atlantic University on April 15, 2016.

The Role Of Partnerships In Achieving The Vision: Tracking And Assessing Community Engagement, Valerie Holton, Kathleen Shaw

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This presentation was given at the Association for Institutional Research Forum in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 2, 2016.

Aspire Partner Report: Assessing The Impact Of Aspire From The Perspective Of Sustained Partners, Jennifer Jettner, Tessa Mckenzie

Division of Community Engagement Resources

The purpose of this evaluation was to assess the quality of ASPiRE's partnerships from the perspective of partners. In addition, this effort also gathered preliminary information about partners' perspectives on VCU as a whole and functioned as a pilot test to inform future efforts for collecting partner voice about VCU's partnerships across the university.

Enhancing Impact: Aligning University Engagement Efforts With Community Needs, Jennifer Early, Valerie Holton, Kevin Allison, Catherine Howard

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This presentation was delivered at the Coalition of Urban Metropolitan Universities Conference in Washington, D.C., in October 2016.

Academic Health Centers: Improving The Health Of Our Communities Through Community Engagement, Jennifer Early, Valerie Holton

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This conference proceeding was presented at the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement held September 2016.

Getting To The Core Of Undergraduate Community-Engaged Research: A Case For Implementing Core Competencies In Ucenr, Tessa Mckenzie, Grant Wolfe, Herb Hill

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This conference proceeding was presented at the International Association on Service Learning and Community Engagement Conference held September 2016.

Incorporating Community Engagement Language Into Promotion And Tenure Policies: One University's Journey, Lynn E. Pelco

Division of Community Engagement Resources

This presentation was given at the 2016 Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities Conference in Washington, D.C.