Overview of this past Friday (12/06)

This past week, my classmates and I returned to the Connellsville Canteen to give our deliverables from the semester to Fayette County community members. These members included a member of the Cultural Trust, the Chamber of Commerce, and a local technical school to name a few. Leading up to this presentation, it was wonderful to see how the work of each of the cohorts (Business, Political Science, Urban Planning, and Sustainability) had come together. Throughout the semester, each group took many different paths, but there were many factors and themes that connected each of our projects. This includes how capacity, engagement, and economic growth all work hand in hand with one another.

For instance, the housing capacity in Fayette currently, due to a rise of Airbnb locations, as part of the tourism economy, affects the ability of people to move into the community. This, in turn, impacts the labor capacity for industries to grow. Similarly, these issues play hand in hand with the “brain drain” effect where students leave their small communities to pursue higher education and do not return, in part, due to the lack of expansion within the local industries.

Lessons Learned

Looking back on this semester-long journey, I learned many valuable things. To start, it was an informative experience working in a client-based situation. It is important to mold and adapt to fit the community’s needs and requests. This is also an ongoing process. Throughout the semester, there were many moments where we had to regroup and adjust our plans for moving forward after learning more and gaining a better understanding of how we could help suit the goals of the community.

I, likewise, learned how human-centered design looks in action. Sustainable growth is developed with the people it affects at the heart of it which means repeatedly checking in with the community to ensure the efforts are being focused accordingly. Through this, I learned more about communicating with different people, and it helped to develop my comfort in reaching out to people through all types of mediums whether it be over the phone, email, or in person.

Additionally, I got to learn more about important leadership skills from community members. Throughout this experience, we interviewed members of the community as well as got to speak and brainstorm with them through our trips to Fayette County. Hearing about their passion for helping their community and learning about how each of them works to do so daily was very inspiring and also showed me what strong leadership looks like in action.

Deliverables- Business

As members of the business cohort, my partners and I created two educational programs to present at the Fayette Entrepreneurship and Education Center. The first program is primarily focused on brand management. It provides a strong outline for small business owners to learn how to use color, typography, and emerging trends to create their visual brand. It also shows how to merge marketing and visual brands to formulate a brand marketing strategy. The second program is focused on Instagram marketing. It walks audience members through the steps of creating a business Instagram account in addition to linking Instagram and Facebook together. It discusses the type of content managers can share and strategies to do so. This includes ways to engage with consumers on the platform and the overall Do’s and Don’ts. Both programs provide an interactive example where you get to look at a real-life use of the techniques and strategies used.

Another project we began through the semester was the foundation of a future job fair. An area of focus identified by community members and through our research was many entry-level job vacancies. When speaking to a manager of a local pharmacy, he suggested the benefits of having a job fair for this type of employment. Through further research, we found that very few job fairs in Fayette County were industry-wide or for entry-level employment. We began creating a plan to help start the process so that future cohorts can implement the idea. This consisted of doing research on planning career fairs through interviewing campus career fair planners and through articles describing best practices for embarking on planning these events. We wrote out an outline of this information as well as a list of potential employers to reach out to and possible venues. We hope that future cohorts can use this information to ease some of the process.

Some additional goals of the job fair are to increase youth leadership in the community and aid in career development. One identified asset of the community is its strong leadership consisting of people truly passionate about the community. Most of these leaders are people of the older generations who could serve as great mentors to younger individuals. This job fair can also serve as a way to expose high school students to some of the internship and mentoring opportunities that can be available. Additionally, working entry-level jobs can be a great way to grow and develop many of the soft skills to carry with you the rest of your career. I know from personal experience working my first job as well as certain extracurriculars throughout my years in grade school have helped to develop my skills in time management and overall responsibility. By attending career fairs, students can learn how to network with employers and develop self-advocacy skills.

Our deliverables were presented at the Fayette County Cultural Trust. With the holiday season in full swing, many of the people we invited were unable to attend. In the future, it may help to mitigate this problem by hosting these deliverable presentations slightly earlier or at the beginning of the spring semester. Despite this, it allowed me and my groupmates to speak with community members I had not previously spoken with. It was insightful to gain more perspectives from community members, and it was a pleasure to be able to present and gain their insights on our work over the semester.

Next Steps

This partnership between the Fayette County Cultural Trust and the University of Pittsburgh is 10 years long. We are in the fourth year of this project and last year was the first year with business being a participating cohort. Moving forward, apart from the implementation of a job fair, some additional ideas for potential projects for the business cohort include educational programs on resume building, networking, and interviewing that could work hand in hand with the job fair to help set students up for success regardless of whether they are looking for a job at the time or not.

Another area of exploration for this project is to create an informational center on the ACRI (Appalachia Collegiate Research Initiative) at Pitt and the research and project conducted thus far. This could help give people a better understanding of the project and what we are doing when reaching out to community members. Alongside that, it could also be a good way of maintaining more consistent communication with community members through the rotating student body throughout the course of this partnership. It can also provide a more exact method of contact with students if community members have thoughts or concerns, they would like to share. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to get into contact with participating students without being reached out to by a current student in the program. I think it is extremely important to ease barriers for this sort of direct communication to ensure the community’s voice and interest are in mind at all points throughout the program.

An aspect of the community that I hope is researched further is the housing market and capacity. The lucratively of the short-term lodging industry, while aiding the local economy through tourism, is creating a barrier to the community’s growth in other areas. It could be beneficial to look into ways that this market could be monitored or regulated to protect the local community more.

In the future, I hope that the University of Pittsburgh and the community in Fayette can strengthen their relationship. With the introduction of the black box theater entering the near future at the Fayette County Cultural Trust, there are more and more opportunities for these communities to collaborate. Throughout the semester, we have discussed ideas for a series of programs where people from either community share stories and experiences with their counterparts. I know that through my brief experience interacting and learning about Fayette County, my interest in learning more has only grown.

Just this past break, I visited a record shop in my local area and right before leaving, I took a stop at the Jazz section. Connellsville’s very own Harold Betters could be found in the pile of records, and I could not help but smile. It provided me with a great opportunity to bring up the things I have learned throughout the semester with my family. I am positive that others, if given the opportunity, would share in my excitement about Fayette and the work their community is doing too.