Institute for Community Research

The Youth Action Research Institute (YARI) of the Institute for Community Research (ICR) in Hartford, CT has summer internships available for graduate students interested in working with and training youth to conduct Participatory Action Research (PAR). YARI uses a PAR model to empower youth to make changes in their communities. Each summer YARI conducts a Summer Youth Research Institute for high school students in Hartford, Connecticut. This summer we are interested in recruiting at least one intern with interest and experience in using Visual Research such as PhotoVoice as a research method.

Goals of the Summer Youth Research Institute are to:

§ Demonstrate to young people the ways research can be used to solve community problems;

§ Teach skills such as problem identification, research methods, computers, and information presentation and dissemination;

§ Demystify the process of research by engaging teens in a project which investigates issues of importance to them, their peers, and their communities;

§ Increase school and community attachment by linking an educational process with a project that invests in the communities of the participants;

§ Create group bonding around positive community participation;

§ Improve community conditions by disseminating and applying the results of research through education and advocacy.

What would you get out of this internship? An opportunity to:

§ Share your research and advocacy expertise with youth in CT;

§ Improve your research skills through exchanging ideas with youth;

§ Build professional relationships with researchers at the Institute for Community Research;

§ Explore future employment and/or thesis topic with researchers involved in research surrounding youth.

Qualifications:

§ Graduate level work in social sciences, health, or related fields;

§ Experience with research methods

§ Experience working with diverse youth populations (including urban and sexual minority youth);

§ Excellent communication and organization skills;

§ Ability to work with a team.

Internships run from June 9, 2008 through August 4, 2008. Stipend: $3,000.

For more information contact Marlene J. Berg (860) 278-2044 ext. 226 (email: marlene.berg@icrweb.org)

Hello!

I am writing to invite faculty and graduate students to participate in a morning workshop on April 17 (Thursday) with Prof. Carroll Parrott Blue, a pioneer of participatory filmmaking and digital storytelling. This workshop is an opportunity for faculty and graduate students who are starting on the path of publicly engaged, visual/digital qualitative research to meet an trailblazer in this emerging field. Prof. Blue will share her reflections on developing multimedia projects in community-based research and creating publicly engaged visual and textual scholarship. The morning workshop will take place in the Center for Research on Families conference room, 622 Tobin Hall, from 9:30 am-12 pm on Thursday, April 17. Brunch will be served. The event is free, co-sponsored by the UMass–Amherst Emerging Methodologies Workgroup and the Center for Research on Families (CRF).

Prof. Blue (University of Houston), will be visiting campus as part of the Massachusetts International Film Festival on April 16, when she will screen her multimedia project, “Black Houston: Digital Storytelling” (7:30pm, 137 Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst). Blue is an award-winning filmmaker, multimedia producer, author and public
artist who blends text, stills, graphics and moving image in traditional and new media formats. Her experimental memoir, “The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing,” is a combination book, DVD-ROM, and website. In 2004, Dawn
was selected by the American Library Association as one of the thirty best American Association of University Press publications and Dawn’s DVD-ROM won the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in its first-ever New Forms category. In her latest project, Professor Blue and her research team are assembling a “storymap” of an historically black neighborhood in Houston, filming community members’ stories on location and placing them on an interactive map (http://www.storycenter.org/thirdward.html). Prof. Blue’s research and multimedia digital projects are exemplars of “emerging methodologies” in community-based qualitative research.

Participants are strongly encouraged to read/view Prof. Blue’s book/multimedia DVD, “Dawn at my Back.” Copies of the book will be available at the workshop. The book is $60, and proceeds benefit Prof. Blue’s “New Dawn Project,” a community-based research project in Houston’s Third Ward.

Please contact Krista Harper at kharper@anthro.umass.edu to RSVP by Monday, April 14 (space is limited).

Prof. Carroll Parrott Blue, a pioneer of participatory filmmaking and digital storytelling, will be visiting campus as part of the Massachusetts International Film Festival on April 16, when she will screen her multimedia project, “Black Houston: Digital Storytelling” (7:30pm, 137 Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst). A scholar specializing in documentary film and African American cinema, Prof. Blue’s research and multimedia digital projects are exemplars of “emerging methodologies” (for more information, see her biographical sketch below).

About Carroll Parrott Blue
During 2006–2008 Carroll Parrott Blue is working as a University of Houston Visiting Professor and Visiting Scholar. Blue’s digital media specialties include Locative Media, Website Community Narratives, and Community-Made New Media Applications. She is a Documentary Filmmaker and teaches African American Cinema. Blue is a San Diego State University professor emeritus. Blue is an award-winning filmmaker, multimedia producer, author and public artist who blends text, stills, graphics and moving image in traditional and new media formats. Her experimental memoir, The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing, is a combination book, DVD-ROM, and website. In 2004, Dawn was selected by the American Library Association as one of the thirty best American Association of University Press publications and Dawn’s DVD-ROM won the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in its first-ever New Forms category.

In her most recent project, Professor Blue and her research team collected oral narratives about an historically black neighborhood in
Houston, filming community members’ stories on location and placing them on an interactive map. A website showcasing her “storymapping” project:
http://www.storycenter.org/thirdward.html

Below is the photo elicitation activity that we may or may not have time to do in class this week. This activity gets you to think more about the images that you are using in your digital stories.

Photocircle Exercise

I thought that you might be interested in reading the article below, from The Nation, on social justice education programs in schools across the country.

The Conscious Classroom

Hey All,

A pleasure meeting you today. I am looing forward to seeing how the semester will unfold.

Any help recruiting undergrad will be much appreciated. It looks like i have 3-4 folks already, so just a few more will be great.

Here is what I have sent to those who have made inquiries:

Thank you for your interest in this project.

Currently I am co-teaching a graduate level Public Health course which involves using technology to tell stories about health and social justice. Essentially, we are using a process called Digital Story Telling. Digital Story Telling involves individual and group processes for creating stories, editing them, developing a plan for how to proceed, recording voice, using images, and so forth. It is a very powerful process, and a lot of fun.

To get a better sense of what the grad students are doing, you can check out the course blog at https://websites.umass.edu/pubh690f/. Undergrad participation will involve being part of the second part of the class, that is, after Spring Break. Undergrads will get trained in this process, and will create digital stories that will be personal stories related to some sort of college health issue (individual choice). There will be two things / products you will produce: a digital story and a reflection paper. In addition, we plan to have some sort of presentation of all the stories (some of the grads will be working with off campus communities) at the end of the semester. Finally, there will probably be two meetings prior to break just to get things rolling a little.

I am uncertain of exactly how many credits this will be, but I am hoping for three. Two would be the minimum. We will need to take care of registration prior to the end of drop/add.

I hope that helps. If you have other questions, please do not hesitate to ask at this email or call at 577-5133.

Thanks,

Tom Schiff

If you find folks who are are interested, please have them call or email me.

Welcome to the Public Health and Social Justice course blog site! This blog will primarily serve as a place for you to post responses to the course readings (as comments). Please note that we will be meeting this semester on Wednesdays, from 9:30am-12noon in the DuBois library building, Room 767. This is a different meeting room than what is posted on SPIRE. We are meeting in this room because it will allow each of us access to a computer over the course of the semester. We are looking forward to working with all of you this semester.

Aline and Tom

1-24-08

Hello Everyone.

Please fill out the survey on Survey Monkey using this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=sWyjsCmGGWQ3Vi_2fQwtoqqw_3d_3d. We would appreciate it if would fill this out before the first class if possible.

At times, Survey Monkey is more effective if you cut and paste the URL. I guess you’ll see what happens.