U of A Professor Helps High School Students Learn Meaning of 'Community'

Photo Submitted

From "How Do You See Community" exhibit

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A year-long project involving Kevin Fitzpatrick, Jones Chair of Community and Family at the University of Arkansas, and students in sociology classes of teacher Suki Highers at Fayetteville High School will finish up with a public exhibit at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 1. The event is free.

The project, “How Do You See Community” was aimed at raising the students’ understanding of what “community” means and how their own experiences shape that view. Their final assignment was to take photographs to express what they’ve learned about community and how that gets interpreted through images. Those photographs will be displayed on the first floor of the Northwest Quad of Fayetteville High. The university’s Community and Family Institute is awarding cash prizes for the top three best photographs in each of the five classes. Fitzpatrick is director of the institute.

“During the first semester I visited students in five different sociology classes once a month to teach them about issues related to community, specifically focusing on Northwest Arkansas and quality of life issues,” said Fitzpatrick, who is a professor in the sociology and criminal justice department of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. “In the second semester we started focusing on this project, and Stephen Teague, who teaches photography at the high school, came in to talk to the students about what makes a good picture and how to get it. I’ve been very impressed with the quality of the pictures the students produced.”

Fitzpatrick has been working with the students as part of the Adopt-A-Classroom program in the College of Education and Health Professions at the U of A.