{"id":33247,"date":"2026-09-17T19:29:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/?p=33247"},"modified":"2026-09-17T19:29:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:29:32","slug":"storytelling-in-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2026\/09\/storytelling-in-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Storytelling in Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a Monday morning in late spring, a group of Macalester students and staff are gathered at a table in the DeWitt Wallace Library’s Digital Resource Center, checking in about three multimedia storytelling projects in progress. Their conversation is wide-ranging: they trade notes about interviews, Zoom recording technology, project deadlines, co-creation with community partners, and the ever-present potential for a project to expand in scope way beyond what can be finished in a semester. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If their work sounds sprawling, it is. It’s also intentional and carefully planned\u2014and the latest step in the longstanding reciprocal community partnerships nurtured by the Community Engagement Center (CEC) and enriched by new connections with Mac’s Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, Caroline Fitzpatrick ’26, Moises Soto Puente ’28, and Maddie Salunga ’27 were one of six teams around the country awarded Civic Story Lab Fellowships through Project Pericles, a consortium that promotes civic learning within higher education. Supported by Mac staff, the three students partnered with Twin Cities organizations Lake Street Council, Rondo Center of Diverse Expressions, the Rondo Community Land Trust, and the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center to develop multimedia storytelling projects that connect historical and contemporary narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This was a golden opportunity because the community partners had projects they wanted to do, and we had relationships with the partners already,” Community Engagement Center associate director Derek Johnson says. “And on campus, we built this collaboration between the CEC and DLA so we could support students to go deeper.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to connecting weekly, the campus team also met monthly with the Project Pericles national cohort and participated in workshops facilitated by Project Pericles and field experts and practitioners, including one on ethical storytelling and positionality led by Mac geography professor Dan Trudeau. Other times, conversations focused more tactically on tech logistics, with Digital Resource Center manager Brooke Schmolke contributing equipment expertise, and DLA librarian and program manager Aisling Quigley and research and instruction librarian Amelia Foster advising on archiving best practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s all part of a comprehensive process designed to bring strong continuity into workflows. “File management sounds mundane, but it’s very important\u2014if one website goes down, we lose everything,” Quigley says. “We’re emphasizing creating sustainable community digital projects. We keep tabs on how things are being stored and ensure that the community members are able to steward it moving forward.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at every step of the process, the cohort emphasized the importance of mutually beneficial co-creation with the community partners, grounded in longstanding relationships and deep trust. “We’re not going in and creating something new\u2014we’re building on it together,” says Sedric McClure, Community Engagement Center co-director and associate dean in the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship. “We come in with a certain set of resources and then center the narrative and needs of community partners. The ideal collaboration is that it comes from that preexisting connection you have, then<\/em> you can innovate as your heart desires. You can’t do everything out of relationships, but you can do a lot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preserving stories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Moises Soto Puento ’28, the semester’s work with Rondo Center of Diverse Expressions (RCODE) was the latest step\u2014not the first\u2014in his work. In high school, he joined the ReConnect Rondo youth council, where he attended community events, led interviews, and created a two-season podcast series telling community stories that garnered 30,000 YouTube views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, RCODE established the Rondo Commemorative Plaza, a public space that shares the history of the historically African American neighborhood that was significantly displaced when the construction of Interstate 94 destroyed 700 homes. The plaza includes a path where community members dedicate bricks in honor of their neighborhood ties. An earlier Macalester collaboration created a digital representation of the walkway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Project Pericles fellowship, Soto Puente interviewed five Rondo community members connected to specific bricks, then embedded them on the website\u2014preserving their stories, then sharing them with a broader audience. He also edited the interviews into a compilation the organization will use to introduce the project online and support future grant proposals. Soto Puente worked on interview questions with RCODE executive director Jonathan Palmer and founder Marvin Anderson. He strived to keep interviews conversational, asking follow-up questions and commenting as he learned new pieces of the collective story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’ve been interviewing elders who were born and raised here, people who see the importance of community and are commemorating their whole family,” he says. “Digital storytelling is opening a lot of doors. This is clearly something that will be used in the future because these videos are replicable and easily accessible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of RCODE’s vision for restorative justice is a landbridge project to reconnect the physically divided neighborhood. Soto Puente sees this project as part of that advocacy. “You have to build the story\u2014the why<\/em>,” he says. “I’m interviewing people and hearing the fuel for the ‘why’ in restorative justice. I’m contributing to something that will be one addition to a greater movement. Yes, an injustice was done. But let’s fix it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Documenting history<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Caroline
Caroline “Fitz” Fitzpatrick ’26<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Caroline “Fitz” Fitzpatrick ’26 began her senior year, a formative part of her Macalester story began to take shape twenty minutes west of campus on Lake Street, one of Minneapolis’s most diverse corridors. In the fall, the geography major worked at the Lake Street Council with program coordinator Matt Kazinka ’11; over winter break, supported by Macalester’s Live It Fund, she partnered with the Lake Street Council to develop a digital storymapping project that amplified the voices of immigrant business owners who call Lake Street home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the Project Pericles fellowship over spring semester, Fitzpatrick intended to build on that project by developing a Lake Street walking tour. As the federal government’s immigration enforcement activity escalated, though, Fitzpatrick and Kazinka shifted their plan: instead, she interviewed small business owners about how they were affected by Operation Metro Surge. Through those video interviews, she documented history as it unfolded, with the Project Pericles campus team’s weekly check-ins throughout the semester providing invaluable layers, structure and support, and even more collaboration to her work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I built strong relationships with the business owners, who trusted me to share their stories of hardship and resilience this past winter,” Fitzpatrick says. “Everyone here has built Lake Street, and kept it going to persevere through immense challenges. It was an honor to learn from these community leaders, and I hope that viewers of my project feel inspired to embody neighborliness, advocacy, and selflessness.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as Fitzpatrick continued working at the Lake Street Council this summer, among the many lessons she’ll carry forward is a common thread she heard throughout her interviews: the encouragement to shop local to support these businesses. “Whether you’re in the Twin Cities or elsewhere, I challenge you the next time you buy groceries, eat out, or go shopping, to discover a new small business near you and practice supporting your neighbors, the same way the people of Minneapolis are supporting each other,” she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centering community voices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On campus and around the world, from producing documentaries at Mac to working closely with members of an Indigenous community in Ecuador on digital storytelling, Maddie Salunga ’27 has developed a deep belief in centering community members’ stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether she’s behind the camera or editing footage, she leads with that intentionality. “I want to ethically represent community members the way they want to be represented, without imposing my point of view, so the community is telling the story as much as possible,” she says. “I want to do it in a way that’s not extractive, but grounded in relationships and trust, and shared with care and love.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last fall, Salunga talked with McClure and Johnson about a project taking shape in collaboration between the Rondo Community Land Trust and the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center to establish the Rondo African-American Arts District. With more than thirty-five banners along St. Paul’s Selby Avenue highlighting community artists, Hallie Q. Brown executive director Benny Roberts imagined sharing more about the artists through digital storytelling. “However big you want to dream for this, I’ll take it on,” Salunga told Roberts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Salunga scheduling five interviews at a time, Roberts facilitated the introduction and developed questions, a key step in establishing trust and helping each interview subject feel at ease. “I’ve seen how much relationships matter and trust matters,” Salunga says. “I’ve been welcomed into people’s studios and homes, and I’m able to expand the relationships and trust that Sedric has already built with Benny, and the trust that comes with those relationships because this idea came from Benny. We’re co-creating this project.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside her fellowship, Salunga also worked on a documentary on the arts in Rondo, as told by community artists, for her capstone project on participatory research as storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she finishes her work, she understands the CEC’s impact differently. “Through this project, I’m seeing how special it is to have a space that teaches community engagement and encourages inquiry in the way that Macalester does,” she says. “I see this as completely unique to Macalester, and so core to the institution and its values. The CEC values community agency, and also recognizes a responsibility to contribute to and work with the community we’re in.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A semicolon, not a period<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In May, the fellowships culminated with an on-campus showcase and a national Project Pericles convening. On campus, the students presented their projects in front of Mac community members as well as their community partners, including some of the people they had interviewed for their projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As closely as the team collaborated all semester, the campus presentation marked the first time the three students saw one another’s work. “Despite our different topics, there are such clear themes and throughlines,” Salunga said at the presentation. “We were all being really intentional about representing these communities, and coming into spaces with attention and care.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the project, McClure saw how all three students appreciated connecting with community members. “They realize that we’re not just recording some stories, but being entrusted with something approaching a level of sacredness to tell the history and conditions of these places,” McClure says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at each step, the group was keenly aware that this is one point in the process, not a finish line\u2014a semicolon for punctuation, McClure suggests, instead of a period. As Soto Puente reflected in the spring, even as he worked on the concrete steps of editing his video, he was also keenly aware that he’s building a foundation for what comes next: “I’ll pass the torch\u2014it’s something that I think about a lot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We want to utilize the students’ unique skills and energy, and that this kind of project could be possible in the future when there’s a different story these partners want to tell,” says Sam Wegner, the CEC’s student engagement programs associate. “The risk is that you overpromise and underdeliver, and we want to do the opposite, in a long-term way. We don’t want to say this project is done and sail into the sunset. These organizations are still going to be here next year. We’re conduits for what’s happening now and what could happen in the future.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year, three students developed multimedia storytelling projects with community partners, supported by a national Project Pericles fellowship.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":33413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[699],"class_list":["post-33247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-engagement","tag-student-research-and-creativity-2"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_link_url":"","custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","article_type":false,"post_thumbnail_style":"default","flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_downloads":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33247"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33453,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33247\/revisions\/33453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}