Author: Erin Kathleen Bahl

Erin Kathleen Bahl is an assistant professor of Applied and Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work explores the possibilities digital technologies afford for creating knowledge and telling stories.

I teach in a communications department that emphasizes critically-informed digital literacy, social justice, and civic engagement. Many courses in our curriculum ask students to engage in social justice topics through hands-on work with non-profit clients or community partners (e.g. Beautiful Social). However, when I was hired, I struggled with actualizing a community engagement model or conceiving of how I could enact our department’s commitment in my graphic design and visual rhetoric classes. I didn’t have local connections, and I felt I didn’t have the time or training I needed to reach out and initiate partnerships. Many instructors of digital or…

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