2022 2022: Exploring Justice on Campus

A collaboration with Crime and Justice Studies convened students in discussions about local justice issues on the UMass campus.

Throughout Spring semester of 2022, Assistant Professor Gabo Camnitzer from the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and Katie Krafft, an Assistant Professor within Crime & Justice Studies at LARTS, have been working together to teach collaborative classes that demonstrate “working with multiple mediums and conceptions of justice and access to resources and ideas.” Beginning with speculative proposals for improving campus life during remote learning activities, and recently manifested in physical projects in the CVPA stairwell, their collaboration builds conversation around social justice issues that particularly affect the students who live on campus.

Camnitzer and Krafft first brought their classes together during the Spring 2021 semester. Camnitzer was teaching Social Practice Topics I (AXD 217) and Krafft was teaching City Life: Introduction to Urban Studies (URB 201). In an effort to bring their students ideas together, the two convened a series of collaborative class meetings that included 46 students with backgrounds in art and design, business, humanities, social sciences, and STEM. The groups made proposals for identifying and solving problems they perceived in their local communities and campus experiences.

This collaboration was continued into the Spring 2022 semester, this time with a new group of participants and new objectives. Students in the two classes were tasked with “thinking about reinventing the ways that we share space, and how the underused spaces of the UMassD campus can be repurposed for a mutually beneficial cause,” says Krafft. The collaborating classes met multiple times over the course of the semester, including during an intensive two-week project development period in which students worked together to envision different projects meant to foster the campus community. The nine groups produced interactive installations focused on such topics as conversations about “community, cultural connectivity, and belonging.” Participation was documented through a statement wall, where students put sticky notes on the statement that they related to. Others followed topics such as: making your own tea bags and learning about self-care, information about food insecurity and the water quality in different parts of the United States, including in our own campus. Other interactive projects included a roommate chore wheel.

The collaborative projects emphasize teamwork, communication across disciplines, and an open-endedness of that which “allows us to move it in whatever direction it is calling” says Krafft. Through this flexible approach, all participants learned from each other, their professors, and the community that they engaged with.

The projects were presented between Thursday, March 31st, and Tuesday April 5 at the CVPA.