After many weeks of learning from Fayette County and formulating our deliverables, it was time to present our findings, completed work, and future plans to our stakeholders. On November 17th, we drove the hour down to the Connellsville Canteen. The canteen was where we first met with many members of the community as well as our primary partners Michael Edwards and Daniel Cocks of the Fayette County Cultural Trust (FCCT). It’s a unique asset, serving as a museum, cafe, and event space, and is an initiative of the FCCT.
The two weeks prior to our presentation, we were faced with a challenge: combining all four groups’ work into a succinct story. Our larger cohort was split up into a sustainability capstone group, a business group, an urban studies group, and a political science group. For the majority of the semester, we all worked separately with our smaller teams, and didn’t quite know what exactly the rest were doing. This presentation required us to piece them all together and collaborate extensively, fleshing out how they relate to common themes and goals and figuring out how to transition between each section. We all kept in mind the main objectives; strengthening the county’s economy, learning its current assets and needs, and building partnerships with community members and organizations. With this as the basis for our project as a whole, the structure of the presentation came into focus. Although we were not able to practice as a full team more than once, we worked with each other to figure out what we wanted to highlight in the introduction and conclusion and how to transition to the next group, focusing on how each group’s work builds off each other’s. When we presented at Connellsville, we highlighted that our work is meant to be a reflection of the community and the importance of their input in directing what we did and will be continuing to work on in the future.
The actual presentation in Connellsville was somewhat nerve-wracking, as the people we were speaking to are the ones who are being impacted by our work, and it’s their opinion of how we did that matters. It was important to us that they felt understood and are pleased with the deliverables and future direction of the project. I’m happy to say that it went very well. What was scheduled to be about a 30-minute talk ended up being around twice that, and no one seemed to mind one bit. Hearing everything come together that day was very impactful. The community members in the room were quite impressed with what we were able to accomplish. They also gave very helpful feedback into where we could expand our work, such as branching out our career resources focused on highschool students to recent graduates, as there exists a need to help those who are out of high school but did not go to college or land a job right away.
Something interesting about this presentation compared to our conversations in class and the presentation we would give two weeks later in D.C. was how the audience influenced what we highlighted and how we spoke. We didn’t have to talk as much about the background of the county and the apparent issues it’s facing because these were all members of the community we were speaking to. They are more aware than us of these facts. We did reiterate some, especially ones we were focused on addressing, to make sure they felt we were coming from a place of understanding. However, we geared the presentation to talk about what we were doing to help, highlighting the people who we partnered with and learned from, and made it clear that our work with the community does not end here, but will be continued for years to come. We also made sure that we were being very enthusiastic and optimistic, focusing on the positive parts of our research. The needs we found in the community were framed as opportunities for growth.
This experience was also a great chance to practice my public speaking skills. My part of the presentation was an interesting challenge to me. It was focused on the data from our community survey but also had an emotional appeal in which I was quoting responses about residents’ vision for the future of their city. I had to make incorporate somewhat bland statistics in a way that highlighted key takeaways that we could draw from to base future work and also try and give a proper voice to the featured respondents who had some beautiful things to say about their hopes for the town. I think I was able to construct my section well, building up to the quotes and letting them carry weight, focusing on my cadence to be able to make my words sound more impactful. I was told I gave someone goosebumps, so I take that as a success.
Our presentation at the ACRI conference in D.C. was a very different affair. This one felt more formal, with everyone in business attire and Appalachian Regional Commission officials in attendance. However, the stakes felt lower. The people we were presenting to weren’t the ones being impacted by our work and wouldn’t know if our descriptions of the county truly encapsulated community members’ experiences of it. Our talk was also only one of thirteen, and the spotlight on us for 15 minutes. This was a mighty challenge to cut everything we did over the course of the semester down to roughly a minute per person. We had to choose only the most important, and truthfully the most impressive-sounding, aspects of our project to highlight and had to be brief. Because of this time crunch, it was also much more important for us to all practice together and help each other edit our portions. We gave lots of constructive feedback about what parts we could cut, what can be more highlighted, how certain phrases can be worded, and the manner in which to say them. We also reworked the slides to make them more cohesive. Once we had this down, we practiced our speech over and over, going from table reads to standing and rehearsing as if on stage, making sure we had the physical transitions from speaker to speaker down.
The practice certainly paid off with a successful presentation. Compared to other presentations from the other colleges in attendance, ours seemed to go smoother and we had more content in terms of the actual work done over the semester. I’ve never had too much trouble with public speaking, although I always get nervous beforehand. The more times I have to speak in front of a large group, the easier it becomes though, so this experience was helpful in that regard. Having to talk to very varied audiences about the work I’m doing is also good practice. The group in D.C. differs from those in Connellsville and from my fellow peers, advisors, friends, and family I’ve described my project to. Picking and choosing what to mention, how much background to give, the level of jargon, and tone that differs between them.
Being able to listen to other schools speak about their projects and talk to them at our tables and during poster sessions was very informative and, in my opinion, the reason going to this conference was worth it. I was inspired by some of the universities, such as the nursing group that worked on food security and the team that put on a health fair. There were also examples that showed me what not to do with this project. Certain teams did work that while on the surface seemed neat, in reality, don’t have any plans for implementation. For example, there was a commercial made for a non-existent restaurant. A more impactful solution could have been to make a commercial for a restaurant already in the area that could use more exposure. Something I noticed across all the projects is that the Appalachian region as a whole is facing some similar needs, especially in the areas the groups worked on. Some of these issues include poverty, dilapidated buildings, unemployment, and a lack of businesses. A common goal also included highlighting town history. Sharing the work we’re doing to address these can help other groups also focusing on them to have more potential ideas to work with.