Recent Cinema Arts grad Philip Rabalais worked closely with Manchester city leaders and residents to create a dynamic promotional video for the community.  Enjoy the video below!

Civil & Environmental Engineering students created a design for replacement of a pedestrian bridge for the Cedar Prairie Trail in Waterloo, Iowa.

As part of the ICIGO student organization within the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences, students used GIS to analyze risk factors and indicators of emergency management hotspots in Waterloo.

Community Risk Reduction is defined as “a process to identify and prioritize local risks, followed by the integrated and strategic investment of resources (emergency response and prevention) to reduce their occurrence and impact” (Vision 20/20).

Students in the ICIGO student organization within the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences created visually-appealing and dynamic maps to show organizational and jurisdictional subsections of Waterloo.

The team used GIS applications to create a user-friendly online map that allows residents to easily access boundary information of distinct parts of the city, including all 31 neighborhood associations, wards and precincts, census tracts, and more.

Students in the Spring semester Policy and Persuasion course continued developing policy recommendations around high-priority housing issues in Waterloo, building on work done by groups in the previous semester and creating both policy recommendations and resources.

Working closely with Waterloo’s Center for the Arts, MFA student Sean Tyler designed and installed two murals at the gateway to the downtown district.

Students in the Fall semester Policy and Persuasion course worked with Waterloo representatives to first identify some of the most pressing issues related to home ownership and affordability, and then to develop policy recommendations for the City moving forward.

Four student groups focused on distinct, yet overlapping housing issues:

Graduate and advanced undergraduate students in the Department of Sociology & Criminology studied the relationship between law enforcement and mental health cases in Waterloo.

Recent Cinema Arts grad Philip Rabalais teamed up with current film student Timmer Penny to create a short film documentary of the Hero Hustle, an annual event that takes place in Manchester Iowa.  Enjoy the video below!

As part of his graduate capstone project, Sports & Recreation management student Chris Gelhaus provided recommendations for the reuse of a historic school gymnasium in Essex, Iowa. 

Essex, Iowa, is interested in the redevelopment and reuse of a gymnasium within town. The city is looking for a community center, focused primarily on creating public spaces, hosting programming for youth and adults, and holding public events.

As part of his graduate capstone project, Sports & Recreation management student Thomas Harder collaborated with the Manning Parks and Recreation department on a strategic plan for their community recreation center and ballfields.

Students from the School of Journalism & Mass Communication created strategic communications plan for community leaders in Manning with the goal of attracting new residents to the area.