Civic Engagement and Community Based Learning

Mason Rooney, Aidan Conroy, Aaron Braswell

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Michael Hogan

Wise Guys is a Class of 2018 SEED 20 nonprofit organization focused on empowering young men to make healthier, more responsible decisions about sexuality and intimate relationships. As our capstone project in COM 495, we assessed Wise Guys’ communication strategies and made suggestions that hopefully will help them advance their mission and spread their vision beyond North Carolina. These include ideas for defining their target audiences, developing an effective mission statement, increasing their social media presence, and creating a more consistent message strategy.

Isabella McElrath, Margaret Reliford, Daniel Bunson, Dusan Kovacevic

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Gayle Kaufman

The literature surrounding homeownership indicates that stable housing can have long-term social and financial benefits for homeowners. With the foundational belief that “everyone deserves a decent place to live,” Habitat for Humanity’s nationwide homeownership program provides low-income families a path to homeownership with an affordable mortgage. In collaboration with Our Towns Habitat for Humanity (OTH) in Cornelius, North Carolina, the purpose of this research was to better understand the ways that Habitat for Humanity has impacted the lives of its clients across Mecklenburg County. As part of a project-based Survey Research Methods course, we administered a survey to Habitat homeowners in an effort to quantify the differences in quality of life (QOL) before and after moving into their Habitat homes. The target population for the survey was the OTH client base of 291 homeowners currently residing in single-family Habitat Homes in one of six counties across the Davidson/North Mecklenburg area. The survey was designed to evaluate quality of life for Habitat homeowners, using health status, educational achievement, financial betterment, employment, and individual perceptions of safety as QOL indicators. The survey also included questions regarding basic demographics of the homes and homeowners. All 23 questions on the survey were multiple choice, check-all-that-apply, and open-ended questions. The survey was non-selectively administered via mail to 291 Habitat homeowners, which is representative of all the Habitat clients for whom Our Towns Habitat for Humanity had contact information. Clients for whom OTH did not have contact information and clients in the process of completing the Habitat homeownership program were excluded from this study. On behalf of OTH, participants were compensated (i.e.: one completed survey per home) with one $50 gift card to any Our Towns Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Sheila Núñez, Maggie Farrell, Bean Rodriguez, Anthony Ryback

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Michael Hogan

As a part of the Communication Studies capstone (COM 495), our team partnered with Human Capital Investment, Inc., a Charlotte-based nonprofit, to analyze their communication strategies and provide suggestions for improvement. We familiarized ourselves with the communications materials that HCI currently has (website, various social media platforms, information sheet, and brief promotional video recorded from the Seed 20 presentation). Then, we provided an analysis of their materials and suggested improvements focused on the language used, persuasion tactics, and branding. Our team then produced a brochure for HCI to use to acquire new partnerships. This project culminated in us completing an expansive portfolio based on relevant literature and the needs of the organization, and will be presented to Dr. Vanessa Stewart, Founder and Executive Director of HCI.

Ashley Behnke

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Stacey Riemer

The purpose of my project was to conceptualize an ideal program proposal for Ada Jenkins Drama Enrichment program to help with the current leadership transition. Additionally, this program proposal was intended to provide a teaching resource that justifies the importance of the arts education in after-school programming with suggestions for future partnerships and resources for program sustainability. Drama enrichment is an Ada Jenkins after-school program where volunteers lead elementary age children in Improv/theatre activities. The primary goals are to exercise the children’s creativity, build self-confidence, and help them develop tools for public speaking and analytical thinking. This project began in reflection journal entries about my volunteer experience at Ada Jenkins and reflective conversations with fellow drama volunteers. We noted that the programs loose structure was providing for a chaotic environment and lack of focus. The need for more volunteers was apparent and as was the need for volunteers who can dedicate more time to Ada. Observation, research on existing arts education programs and their importance, conversations with peer volunteers and Ada Jenkins staff members, and review of course concepts led to my conclusion that wider and deeper community partnerships are required to elevate this program to a meaningful level and offer a wider volunteer pool to sustain the program in the years to come.

Alexandra Romero

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Mindy Adnot

Hannah Matos

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Mindy Adnot

In CSC 110: Data Science & Society, we explored how high school dropout rates relate to race and economic mobility in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. To extend this analysis, I decided to use Quality of Life (QOL) and American Community Survey (ACS) data to examine how graduation rates and educational attainment relate to family household structures across census tracts in Mecklenburg county. Overall, areas with greater percent single mom households tend to have a greater percent population that went to high school but didn’t receive a diploma. Furthermore, areas with higher graduation rates also have higher percent married couple households. This trend is constant across the years from 2013-2017. A next step would be to see if these results also relate to the conversation on race and economic mobility in the greater Charlotte-Mecklenburg area.

Gretchen Pearson

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Mindy Adnot

For my project, I used the Chicago Data Portal to find meaningful data on the performance of Chicago Public High Schools. The data specifically focuses on the School Progress Report Card from the 2015-16 school year. I wanted to focus on Chicago education because Chicago is my hometown and because I believe education is a primary factor in determining a child’s success. In analyzing Chicago education data I hope to visualize trends in data that can help CPS recognize where they need improvement. I have three main research questions. 1) Does family involvement affect student success (ACT scores and college attendance rates)? How does school safety affect school performance? And are high/low performing schools grouped together geographically? Through data manipulation and visualization I was able to learn more about the performance of Chicago public schools overall and how family involvement and supportive environment affect the academic success of high school students. The schools with the top ten highest college enrollment rates have either strong or very strong families. In addition, a majority of high schools in CPS have a weak or very weak safety rating. What is even more alarming is the fact that the only place a weak supportive environment is visible is in the weak or very weak safety rating. Furthermore, weak supportive environments have much lower ACT attainment scores than strong supportive environments. Finally, the schools with the highest college attendance ratings and strongest safety ratings are all located in the north side of chicago while the schools with the lowest college attendance rating and weakest safety ratings are located in the south side. Overall, the environment of the school and the involvement of families have a very strong impact on a student’s educational success. A child is not able to choose their family. How can Chicago Public Schools create equal opportunity independent of family involvement? It the responsibility of the state and the municipal government to address these concerns and ask themselves the difficult questions in order to provide equal opportunity for educational success regardless of location and family.

Izzy Moody

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Mindy Adnot

While Chicago is a beautiful and diverse city, racial segregation and crime are abundant behind the scenes. Ever since the 1900s, housing discrimination has caused a racial divide where most whites live in the North side and most African Americans live in the South side. In 2016, there were 788 reported incidents of crime. Are there geographic trends relating crime to race, what overall crime trends exist, and what other factors impact crime in Chicago? Using datasets from the Chicago Data Portal, I cleaned the data and created visualizations to map out homicides in Chicago, show crime trends over the years with various bar graphs and area plots, show when crimes occur most often, and compare crime with poverty rates and hardship indexes to offer other potential indicators of crime. Results showed that violence and crime do not always correlate because although homicides are more frequent in South Chicago than in North Chicago, the West, which is split white and black, also has high levels of homicide. Other findings show that theft is the most common crime, overall crime rates have decreased over the years, homicide rates have stayed consistent, crime occurs most during summer months at night, and drug crimes and homicides are positively correlated with poverty rates and the hardship index. Since the crime dataset uses longitude and latitude coordinates whereas the census data uses census tracks, it is hard to see exact comparisons between race and crime – possibly explaining the unexpected homicide concentration in West Chicago. Overall, these findings support the possibility that desegregation could lower homicide rates in Chicago.