Category: Projects

Community-neighborhood projects

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Spring 2016 Ball State Immersive Learning Projects

Ball State students are busy around Muncie this semester!  Here’s a list of projects taking place in our community.

Building Better Health: Developing a Community Gold Standard
Community Partner: Little Red Door East Central Indiana
Faculty Mentor: Peggy Fisher, Department of Communication Studies
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ecoREHAB Studio: Thomas Park Avondale House Rehab
Community Partner: Ball Brothers Foundation
Faculty Mentor: Jonathan Spodek, Department of Architecture
LEARN MORE | READ ARTICLE

Families for Forward Thinking: Partnering with Parents in the 21st Century
Community Partner: Wee Wisdom Nursery School and Child Care Facility
Faculty Mentor: Stacey Allred, Department of Elementary Education
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Heath Farm Sustainability Park Planning
Community Partner: Red-tail Land Conservancy
Faculty Mentor: Dave Ferguson
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Louis E. Ingelhart Scholars and Facing Cancer
Community Partner: Little Red Door
Faculty Mentor: Adam Kuban, Department of Journalism
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Muncie’s Sports Tourism Potential: Strategies to Make the SportsPlex Serve the Community Better
Community Partners: City of Muncie, Muncie Visitors Bureau
Faculty Mentor: Craig Webster, Department of Family and Consumer Sciences
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Public Safety Committee Interviews and Focus Groups
Community Partner: Whitely Community Safety Committee
Faculty Mentor: Melinda Messineo, Department of Sociology
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Serve to Learn Youth Development Project and Focus Groups
Community Partner: Whitely Community Council
Faculty Mentors: Dorshele Stewart, Department of History; Melinda Messineo, Department of Sociology
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Thomas Park – Avondale Neighborhood Action Plan
Community Partner: Thomas Park – Avondale Neighborhood Association
Faculty Mentor: Lisa Dunaway, Department of Urban Planning
LEARN MORE

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ecoREHAB and Ball State Students Rehabilitate Former Meth House

Ball State architecture seniors have partnered with Building Better Neighborhoods and ecoREHAB of Muncie to rehabilitate a house in the Thomas Park/Avondale neighborhood. While ecoREHAB has completed a number of projects in Muncie, this one is unique – the house is a former methamphetamine lab. According to ecoREHAB, “The problems created by the production, sale and consumption of meth amphetamines spells disaster for a neighborhood.  Even when the drugs are gone, left behind are the contaminated buildings where the drug was produced.”

The experience has been unique for the architecture students as well, many of whom are working on a real-life project for the first time. Student Jordan Duke said, “What I’ve learned most from this studio is the possibility of the ripple effect. We’re trying to rehab one house in the Avondale community in hopes that it begins to start a chain of reaction within the community. This house’s success is critical so that it might kick start a movement that will reinvigorate the neighborhood.”

Read additional reflections from students on ecoREHAB’s blog.

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Beech Grove Cemetery Book & Phone App – Fall 2015

Beech Grove Cemetery holds many wonderful stories about the people who came from Muncie and made contributions as state, national and international citizens.  Muncie’s Beech Grove Cemetery Board asked Ball State students to create a book to document these stories and to transfer that content into a walking tour that would allow visitors to access that information via smartphones.   Students gained experience in historical research, technical, and public writing.  The students were responsible for conducting research, identifying themes, designing interpretation, and selecting stories for the book and app.

Learn more from the project video:

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City-wide Preservation Plan for Muncie – Fall 2015

Muncie – like many Midwest industrial communities – is recovering from the recent recession and the resulting blight. According to research completed by Ball State’s historic preservation graduate students, the cities that are making the best recoveries are those with strategies that combine historic preservation and city planning to enact redevelopment efforts based on strategic demolitions, rehabilitations, targeted code enforcement and land banking. They have two major strategies in common: data collection and good preservation plans. Through this immersive learning project, Ball State students led by Faculty Mentor Susan Lankford, participated in ScoutMuncie, a data collection and historic resources survey initiated by Muncie’s Historic Preservation and Rehabilitation Commission. The students used this data, information gathered through a series of community meetings, and their own research to prepare a preservation plan that will guide the Commission’s efforts to preserve our history and use our historic resources to increase quality of life, strengthen our sense of place, and ensure our Sustainability.

Check out their video to learn more:

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The Many Faces of Muncie – Fall 2015

People make Muncie tick.  This city was built and continues to run because of complex, interesting, fascinating people.  This project celebrates the lives of everyday Muncie residents and their contributions to the economy, history, diversity and culture of this community, focusing on telling the stories of their lives and their professions.  By spending time with these people, the Ball State students and their Telecommunications Faculty Mentor, Suzy Smith, were able to shed light on what it takes to create a diverse, steadfast and strong-willed community.

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Muncie Meth Task Force Survey – Fall 2015

The Muncie Meth Task Force is a diverse group of individuals representing housing providers, the health and wellness fields, the city of Muncie, local foundations, and the neighborhoods that are working to find solutions to the issues related to Meth in the community. There are a variety of focus groups and interviews being conducted by consultants at Indiana Resource and Prevention Center out of Indiana University. This work is funded by a NeighborWorks grant to PathStone through which the City of Muncie (Community Development) is a partner.  The purpose of the grant is to complete an assessment of the Meth issue in our community and to establish an action plan to deal with Meth issues relevant to housing.  

In this project Melinda Messineo led a group of Ball State students in conjunction with the Muncie Meth Task Force, to gather information about the use of methamphetamines in Muncie and Delaware county, and the reasons behind the possible increase in usage rates. The data will be used to inform intervention programs that the Task Force will be creating over the next year. To gather the data, students communicated with local law enforcement as well as current and former users from the area.

If you would like more information about the Muncie Meth Taskforce, please contact Annette Phillips.