Gompers Elementary and Middle School
During the 2021-2022 academic year the Beautiful Social Research Collaborative focused on "co-creation" with our community partners through more frequent meetings and more opportunities for feedback and direction from our partners.
In Fall 2021 we began the year by hosting two guest speakers -- Dr. Aimee Terosky, a professor in Educational Leadership at SJU, and Mr. Rennie Parker, a Community School Coordinator for Gompers Elementary. Two projects were born from this discussion:
The first was the Gompers elementary website project. Each week, the B: Social team worked closely with Ms. Rivera, the computer teacher at Gompers, in order to renovate the school's website. Updates included:
A re-organized navigation bar
A new principal's letter
New documents and forms
Revisions to the website's spotlight feature
The team created a more current and cohesive website that puts all that Gompers offers in a better light.
Gompers Website Group discussing strategies in the Barnes Arboretum
In our second Samuel Gompers School project, we created a marketing brochure. As part of the Samuel Gompers School marketing campaign, prospective parents of students will receive a six-page color brochure that promotes the school's values and programs. When parents visit the school for events, this brochure can be given to parents and handed out to local realtors and businesses. B: Social students planned, designed, and copy-edited this brochure with members of the Gompers staff. We collaborated with Dr. David Parry, Communication and Media Studies Professor, who took the photographs for the brochure.
Gompers Brochure Group working on brochure in Bronstein
For our third Fall project, we had the honor of working with Mr. Stacey Torrance. We had formerly collaborated with Mr. Torrance as part of the Life for Life project, pre-pandemic. Mr. Torrance is now CEO and Founder of the Free Mind Entrepreneur Network. This new enterprise is a networking platform for formerly incarcerated individuals and promotes job networking and entrepreneurial resources. The team met bi-weekly with Mr. Torrance to accomplish many items, including a new logo that embodies the spirit of the network, a new website, and a social media launch.
Stacey Torrance at Saint Joseph’s University
In addition to our community partner projects, the collaborative sponsored a three-part social justice series on campus:
On October 5, we helped to sponsor the Life= Death workshop run by the Graterford Think Tank for the public to learn about life sentences in the state of Pennsylvania, where over 5000 people are serving life without parole sentences.
On October 26, we sponsored a film screening entitled Change: Exploring the Concept of Justice in America at the Forum Theater in Campion.
And on November 9, we sponsored an event on "Re-entry and Redemption." This event included a film screening and discussion with the director at the Cardinal Foley Center.
In November, director Aimée Knight attended the Community Writing Conference and the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education conference. She gave a talk on Equity-Based Approaches in Community Writing.
In Spring 2022 we completed five projects.
In our first Spring Project, we organized and hosted the Women in Nonprofit Leadership Event. At this event, we host past B:Social alumni and also other strong women leaders to come and speak about their experiences as a woman in the workplace. In order to prepare for this event, we hung up posters, posted on social media, prepared questions for our panel, prepared decorations and food, and reached out to panelists that we would want to attend the event. This year we had Emily Smedley ‘16 Communications and Program Manager at Lancaster Clean Water Partners, Sam Digiuseppe ‘16 Associate Attorney at Shimberg and Friel, and Risa Waldoks Acting Executive Director at Together for West Philadelphia. Emily and Sam were past Beautiful Social consultants and Foley Fellows.
From left to right: Emily Smedley, Sam Digiuseppe, and Risa Waldoks
In our second Spring Project, we collaborated with Catholic Partnership Schools to create social media posts to promote re-enrollment at their five elementary schools in Camden, NJ. This team created funny, interesting captions, eye-catching designs and posts for social media outlets and identified mentor accounts to explore potential media strategies and possibilities for Catholic Partnership Schools to employ.
CPS Group working together in Bronstein
In our third Spring Project, we were able to continue working with Mr. Torrance. In our second time working with the Free Mind Entrepreneur Network, B: Social students collaborated to create a video and create more social media content. This semester we worked to interview the Free Mind entrepreneurs about the impact entrepreneurship has had in their life and the benefits of being a part of the Free Mind network. In building their social media presence, we focused on bringing awareness to the effects of recidivism. The team was able to compile a list of interview questions, coordinate with entrepreneurs, and filmed the content for the videos, along with creating social media posts. Free Mind will collaborate again with B:Social to continue this project in the Fall of 2022.
Free Mind Group filming in the Annex
B: Social also worked on launching SJU Creative Collective. This was a concept that the SJU Communications and Digital Media department wanted B: Social to further explore. The Creative Collective would be where students could develop and explore their passions in content creation. We were tasked with exploring the idea, which we did by collecting data via focus groups, surveys, and class visits. The plan was to discover what students would want out of the Creative Collective. Throughout the semester we created the mission statement, brand guide, and Instagram account for the Creative Collective.
Creative Collective working together in class
In our final project, we worked with Together for West Philadelphia to update their website. However, this project was not our normal class project. We had two of our amazing fellows, Maggie Tyndall and Maddy Mancino, work on this project with Risa Waldoks of Together for West Philadelphia. These fellows worked with Risa over Zoom to give the Together for West Philadelphia’s website an update. They were able to help update pictures, add and remove tabs, update the language used, and were able to help Risa learn more about Sqaurespace so she may be able to make some small updates in the future on her own.
Front Page of Together for West Philadelphia
In other news, the director, Aimée Knight published the book Community is the Way: Engaged Writing and Designing for Transformative Change, which examines the question, “How can we design for equity and justice in our community partnerships?” This book features the work of the Beautiful Social Research Collaborative and offers a vision for enacting social justice with community partners. Working from a community’s resources and strengths toward the goal of building its internal capacity, this book considers how actions such as grassroots activism, decolonization efforts, co-resistance movements, and social change initiatives can support reciprocity and mutuality. Read the open-access version here.
Front Cover of Community is the Way: Engaged Writing and Designing for Transformative Change
