Title IX Group Project

We were assigned a semester-long group project based around a social justice topic on campus. My group, which included Gabrielle Struzik, Sofia Baldwin, and Hayley Buick, partnered with Alfred State College's Title IX program and worked with Title IX Coordinator Nikkie Herman to promote the awareness of different topics surrounding the organization.

The first initiative my group project worked on was to generate content to help combat the rise in catcalling reports on campus. For the first part of the project, we made posters that were hung up around residence halls and student buildings.

The posters were also distributed on Alfred State's Bandwagon Instagram via their story. I personally made 20 posters, which resulted in 32 poster designs total.

In partnership with the posters we decided to make a catcalling survey to distribute across campus. The survey is seven questions long, all pertaining to whether or not a participant has been catcalled. The survey includes an optional open ended question that asks participants to share a story about their catcalling experience.

The survey was distributed on Alfred State’s Student Announce page and was sent out in a presidential email addressing the issue on campus.

We have received 90 responses since putting the survey out to the public. The photos above show some of the responses we have received; not shown were some responses that were not appropriate and even vulgar. These responses will be taken out once the survey data is collected. Our plan is to use this data to further inform our work and create content generated from these responses.

The last thing we have done for this part of the project is create button designs that were distributed to students through the Week of Action events on campus (Nov. 8 – Nov. 12). The goal for these buttons was to create an aesthetically pleasing design while all keeping to the core message of our campaign.

The above image is the design and mockup I created for this part of the project. My group each made one design, for a total of four buttons. Our button designs were sent out with two additional designs, one for the CLC and one for Week of Action.

I made a minute long motion graphic that explains the 9 most important things about Title IX. The motion graphic will be posted on Alfred State’s social media every ninth of the month to promote awareness to the rights students are entitled to under Title IX. My group project members worked on an additional motion graphic, a quick access card, and an infographic to go along with this motion graphic.

Our final assignment for this project was to turn two slides from an older Title IX powerpoint into something interactive and informative. One slide discusses the 10 signs of a healthy relationship, while the other discusses the 10 signs of an unhealthy relationship.

Our group decided that creating an Adobe Spark page for each slide would fit this goal. I decided to create the pages and put together a banner for each page using Adobe Illustrator.

Since there were twenty words in total, we each decided to take five words and create simple illustrations for them. I had the first five Healthy Relationship words, which were Comfortable Pace, Trust, Honesty, Independence, and Respect. We agreed to do the illustrations in a similar style; we each created the illustrations in Adobe Illustrator using the vector brush tool, and used flat colors with simple shading to complete the pieces. Sofia and I created pieces using warmer colors for the Healthy Relationships page, while Hayley and Gabrielle used cooler colors for the Unhealthy Relationships page.

Once the illustrations were finished, I placed each image next to the definition and discussion of each assigned word. I wrote up all the information presented within the pages using the One Love Foundation’s unhealthy and healthy relationships blogs. I put everything into my own words and discussed these ideas further for each sign. Finally, the pages were linked to each other so that an individual can navigate between the two pages.The piece was then published and links were created for viewing. You can find these pages below.

This project was an incredible and collaborative experience that I will cherish forever. It is by far one of my favorite projects I have ever worked on, and definitely my favorite group project. My group members were not only amazing designers but were passionate about the work, which helped me maintain focus on the important work we were doing. It was really validating to see our work have an actual impact beyond the conceptual on Alfred State’s campus throughout the semester. I am grateful that we were able to work with Nikkie Herman, who was a great mentor and guide throughout this project. I will never forget what this project has taught me and I sincerely hope I get to work on projects like this in the future! Thank you to Gabrielle Struzik, Sofia Baldwin, and Hayley Buick for a great semester and project!