Connecting Muncie Neighborhood partners and resources
Southside is a neighborhood in Zone 1.
The Association is happy to report another successful Family Fun Day at Cooley Park. This year, they honored past resident Mark Kinman. He helped plan the original event in 2022. Children enjoyed the Splash Pad and basketball court, tug of war (Bridge Community Church), and a giant slip n’ slide (Muncie Police Department).
The City of Muncie has diverse communities with friendly people, exciting pasts, and outstanding cultural amenities that make it a desired place to live, do business, and visit. Starting in Spring 2019, Studio 165+, an immersive design studio in the School of Art, began working with neighborhood committees to develop their visual identity, elevate their image and evoke a sense of pride in residents. The students researched each neighborhood determining unique key aspects, characteristics, challenges, and opportunities. After developing a neighborhood identity, they created designs to captured those characteristics and established style guides to help the neighborhoods illustrate graphic standards and rules to ensure consistency and continuity across applications and platforms. The neighborhoods done so far include Gatewood, Halteman Village, Westbrier, Old West End, Robinwood Estates, Forest Park, McKinley, Southside, Riverside/Normal City, and Whitely. With input from residents of each neighborhood, they created a variety of materials including logos for each neighborhood to choose from, each one tailored to what makes that area of our community special–from the mid-century architecture of Halteman Village, to the open hands of Whitely.
If Studio 165+ is coming to your neighborhood soon, please fill out this brief questionnaire to help them get started on your new neighborhood identity.
Photo Gallery | You can also check out the great work they’ve done so far!
Whitely Community Identity Design
Old West End Neighborhood Identity Design
Studio 165+
Project Page: https://www.studio165plus.com/bbn
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/studio165plus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio165plus
Faculty Mentor: Shantanu Suman
Department: Art
Community Partner: Building Better Neighborhoods, Muncie Action Plan, Halteman Village, Robinwood Estates, Westbrier Neighborhood, Whitely Community, Old West End
Students: Nikki Abel, Ashley Allegretti, Hanna Boggs, Mariah Drake, Kate Hamilton, Valerie Francis, Emily Lipps, Sylvia Marbach, Samantha Robbins, Cameo Smith, Ashlyn Sterling, Katie Strader, Angel Winchester
Faculty Mentor: Shantanu Suman
Department: Art
Community Partner: Building Better Neighborhoods, Muncie Action Plan, Forest Park, McKinley Live Learn Neighborhood, Southside Neighborhood
Student Team: Samantha Robbins, Ashlyn Sterling, Dominic Zelli, Erin Mawhorter, Jared Carter, Joel Hall, Katie Strader, Katie Hamilton, Mariah Drake, Ashley Allegretti, Jakob Rosenberger, Mariah Jester, Nikki Abel
Faculty Mentor: Shantanu Suman
Department: Art
Community Partner: Building Better Neighborhoods, Muncie Action Plan, Riverside/Normal City
Student Team: Samantha Robbins, Ashlyn Sterling, Katie Strader, Valerie Francis, Angel Winchester, Hanna Boggs, Mariah Drake, Cameo Smith, Kate Hamilton, Ashley Allegretti, Sylvia Marbach, Nikki Abel, Dominic Zelli, Erin Mawhorter, Jared Carter, Joel Hall, Jake Gesick, Aubrey Hayden, Xander Crawley, Kimberly Holbrook, James Ong Jakob Rosenberger, and Mariah Jester
Ball State faculty, students, and community partners worked together this Fall on a number of immersive learning projects in and around Muncie.
Beneficence Records (ongoing)
Faculty Mentor: Daniel Porter, School of Music
Community Partner: Indiana Public Radio
Campus Sexual Assault and Rape Culture in the Age of #MeToo
Faculty Fellow: Jill Christman, Department of English
Community Partner: Jana’s Campaign and The Facing Project
Computer Science for Middle Schoolers (CS4MS) (ongoing)
Faculty Mentor: Dave Largent, Department of Computer Science
Community Partners: Burris Laboratory School, Muncie Central High School, Northside Middle School
i-Made (Indiana Made) Muncie: Custom Fabricated Design-through-Production (ongoing)
Faculty Mentor: Kevin Klinger, Department of Architecture
Community Partners: Indiana Hardwoods (IHLA), Midwest Metals, Minnetrista, Mobile Market
The Junior Producers Club
Faculty Mentor: Christoph Thompson, School of Music
Community Partners: Boys and Girls Club, Buley Community Center
Makerspaces as an Opportunity to Cultivate and Reinforce Cultural Identity in Post-Industrial Cities
Faculty Fellow: Laura Romano, Department of English
Community Partner: Muncie Arts and Culture Council
Muncie Micro-Cinema
Faculty Mentor: Maura Jasper, School of Art
Community Partner: Muncie Arts and Culture Council
Muncie Neighborhood Visual Identity Design (ongoing)
Faculty Mentor: Shantanu Suman, School of Art
Community Partners: Building Better Neighborhoods, Muncie Action Plan
Preserving the Past and Looking Toward the Future: Historic Preservation and Digital Storytelling for a Muncie Landmark Church
Faculty Mentor: Peggy Fisher, Department of Communication Studies
Community Partner: St. Mary Church
Reconstructed Early Language and Literacy Learning: Addressing school readiness through critically conscious listening centers
Faculty Mentors: Emily Hoffman, Department of Early Childhood, Youth and Family Studies; Kristin Cipollone, Department of Elementary Education
Community Partner: Huffer Memorial Children’s Center
Resiliency Plan for Muncie
Faculty Mentor: Michael Burayidi, Department of Urban Planning
Community Partner: City of Muncie
Sitting at the Feet of our Muncie Elders: Stories of Resistance and Resiliency
Faculty Mentor: Darolyn “Lyn” Jones
Community Partner: Westminster Village, Muncie Delaware County Senior Center, Moth Danner and YART (Yard Sale for Art).
This project aimed to engage students from different disciplines in a community mapping initiative in two neighborhoods in the Southside of Muncie (Forest Park and Thomas Park). Students learned about critical and creative approaches to cartography and strategies for participatory mapping, with an emphasis on data collection, production of maps, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Story maps and a preliminary cultural neighborhood atlas were the two principal deliverables of this project.
Project Maps:
Old and New Funcies of the South Side of Muncie | The Best of Forest & Thomas Park/Avondale | Reminiscing Labor Life on the Muncie Southside
Faculty Mentor: Jörn Seemann
Department: Geography
Community Partner: Forest Park Neighborhood Association, Thomas Park/Avondale Neighborhood Association
Students: Kyle Amonette, Austin Berry, Elizabeth Carpenter, Alex Darland, Mitch Grime, Kyle Kedra, James Longwith, Kyle Marsh, Tim Martin, Tyler O’Riley, Justin Parsons, Caitlin Stankovich, Rebecca Stroud
The Muncie Action Plan Task Force 2 is working to energize and mobilize the neighborhood associations of Muncie. There is a need to better understand how the various neighborhoods conceptualize their boundaries and define their unique identities in order to best meet resident’s needs and increase engagement.
Melinda Messineo (Ball State University) in partnership with Building Better Neighborhoods and the Muncie Action Plan Task Force 2 (TF2), will work with 12 Sociology capstone students during spring 2015 to create and administer a Southside Neighborhood Survey.
The project will begin in January with meetings between the students, Task Force 2 and other stakeholders, including representatives from the City’s Community Development Department, Mayor’s office and other elected officials. The survey will be created, reviewed and then administered in early March. A presentation of the final project is scheduled to take place at the Neighborhood President’s Council meeting at Maring-Hunt libary, April 21st from 6:00-7:00 pm. All are welcome to attend.
January 22, 2015 – Melinda Messineo and the BSU Sociology students met with representatives from City government, elected officials and long-time residents of the neighborhood to discuss the history and culture of Southside. The students will consider this information as they prepare their final survey document.
April 21, 2015 – The results of the survey were presented to the community partner at the April Neighborhood President’s Council meeting. Only 44 respondents participated in this initial round of surveying. The students will continue to collect survey results throughout the summer to gather more input from the residents.
The Southside neighborhood association the fourth Tuesday of every month from 5:30-7:00 PM in the Southside Middle School cafeteria. All are welcome.
Articles of incorporation (pdf)
NEW: Official Southside Neighborhood Analysis and Action Plan
This is the final product for Ball State’s Neighborhood Action Plan course, Urban Planning Studio 302 from the fall of 2019.
Instructor Dr. Teresa Jeter and the Ball State University Urban Planning Studio 302 (BSU), consisting
of 17 students, conducted an assessment of the neighborhood’s existing conditions that included
housing, demographics, infrastructure, businesses, churches, schools, parks and vacant lots. In each
of these areas, an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) was
performed. Through a series of community meetings, residents were presented the details of the
neighborhood assessment and the outcome of the SWOT analysis. Residents provided input as to
what they considered to be the top priority issues for their neighborhood.
Do you have information about this area that you’d like to share? Contact Building Better Neighborhoods. We’d love to hear about it!