JustConnect: Social Media for Social Justice
By: Robbie Routenberg and Jimmy Brown
As higher education professionals, we are constantly trying to find new and innovative ways to engage our students in learning. In the age of technology, where most students are spending a great deal of time on the internet, questions are being raised about how to more effectively use these resources to reach students.
This fall, students at the University of Michigan will have the opportunity to join a new online community dedicated to fostering and strengthening their understanding of social justice. JustConnect, a social media site designed by UM students and staff, will help students engaged in social justice work and connect with other students around similar projects. The site allows current and former members of these programs to connect and engage with each other, find resources related to social justice, and maintain ties to organizations or programs in which they have been involved.
Similar to Facebook or MySpace, students are invited to create their own profile and join groups based on their involvement on campus. The groups include both the curricular and co-curricular aspects of student life. Within these groups, students may post events of interest, reflections of their experiences, or project ideas that they are trying to get started.
“I am really excited about the opportunity for the UofM social justice community to have a space to come together. JustConnect helps students share resources and build coalitions. At the same time, JustConnect strengthens our individual student organizations. In organization-specific groups, we can post ideas and reflections--the stuff that really fuels our work,” says Holly Frei, an undergraduate student member of JustConnect.
JustConnect was conceived during the summer of 2007 as students connected to The Program on Intergroup Relations and the Ginsberg Center for Community Service & Learning expressed the need to be able to connect with alumni members to better understand how they can maintain their commitment to social justice after graduation. Coincidentally, both alumni of IGR (Program on Intergroup Relations and SERVE (of the Ginsberg Center for Service Learning) expressed the need to have a greater connection to their formative social justice experiences, to be able to connect with old friends, find new collaborators and continue critical conversations about social issues not easily found in 'the real world'.
This year, with the assistance of grants from the University of Michigan, JustConnect has been able to expand beyond the IGR and SERVE boards to incorporate a wide variety of student affairs units and curricular programs. "JustConnect gives the College of Engineering a chance we haven’t had before – to link our students with others in important social justice conversations and actions. The collaborations that JustConnect offers are really exciting!" says Jennifer Wegner, a representative from the College of Engineering, a new collaborator on the site.
The grants have also allowed JustConnect to become a more vibrant site, incorporating more modern technological features. One vital part of JustConnect will be its StoryPort functionality. These group pages will carry lively personal narratives about students’ social justice experiences. It will allow students to share reflections on community work and its relationship to academic pursuits using multimedia story blogs and student portfolio materials. The StoryPort will invite students to dialogue about ethics, social responsibilities, and cultural competencies – interactions that often lead to transformative learning and meaning-making. Curricularly, this will allow JustConnect to be used as part of a capstone course; students enrolled in the IGR capstone course have been required to utilize it as a space to document and share their experiences within the program and the University.
Our hopes in building this new site are to help students make connections between the work they are doing within and outside of a classroom setting and to make collaboration efforts easier on a large university campus. Additionally, with a target audience of both current and graduated students, we aim to sustain the investment we’ve made in enrolled students throughout their lives as alums. By using technology as a platform, not only are these hopes easier to reach, but it is also likely that students will actually use it. We’ve heard many students express excitement for this social-justice-based online community space, mentioning that they can imagine checking the site daily and contributing to the conversations and resources being shared there.
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Jimmy Brown is The Associate Director of Student Activities and Leadership at The University of Michigan.
Robbie Routenberg is The Program Manager, The Program on Intergroup Relations at The University of Michigan.
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Message from the Chair
What are we Doing?
Social Service or
Social Change?
Would They Still Have Written If They Knew I Had To Go Home And Tell My Wife?
JustConnect:
Social Media for Social Justice
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