ENGAGEMENT

Community Engagement Project

Cole Berge, Colton Gardner, Nicolas Porcelli, Christian Galiza, Matt Brittain
Portland State University

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Community Engagement Project

I.

For our project, we recognized that cigarette butts were one of the main contributors of

the overabundance of litter in the downtown area especially around the Portland State campus.
While doing our research we notice that there were insufficient cigarette receptacles in and
around our campus. The issue that follows with the lack of receptacles is that these chemically
laden products will cause damage to the environment. So, with the data that was collected from
our survey it showed that 11 out of 12 people would use the the receptacles instead of throwing
them on the ground and/or in the trash.

One problem facing the PSU community is the lack of a public platform for selfexpression and social exchange. Without the ability to engage with the University as a whole,
students will suffer from a lack of community and even a personal loneliness. These issues, in
turn, can put students mental health at risk and force them to pursue drugs and drug culture as an
alternative to self-expression and community. The University already has programs in place that
provide for the most basic needs of a student like food, water, shelter and safety, but on Maslows
hierarchy of needs, there are several other things that our school leaves us to figure out on our
own. Things like a sense of belonging, self-esteem and the agency to achieve self-actualization
are fairly hard to come by, barring some help. If students are unable to come up with a clear and
easy way to express themselves and find community at PSU, then these needs just arent going to
be met. Furthermore, if students (especially those in their first year) cannot meet these human
needs with the resources given to them, then they will be stuck with a quality of life that is less
than what they would have otherwise. Thus, the goal of this community engagement plan is to

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uncover a way to give students an avenue for creative expression and the sharing of ideas within
the community.

II.
For our project to get started we first need to get the approval from Portland State. Once
we get the approval from Portland State we can start our project. Then we can start talking to
some potential stakeholders such as Mercy Corps, Center for Public interest Design, Center for
Health and Social Inequality Research, Regional research Institute for Human Services and
Center for Urban Studies. The groups that will be involved in building or organizing the wall
project will be our group and one or two of our stakeholders that we will partner up with. In
addition, the community can help us by having volunteers that will assist us with the building
portion of our group project. For our group to get an in-depth understanding on our issue, one of
our plans is to set up an appointment to talk with Mercy Corps about the issue and ways they
have solved this problem before and the lessons they have learned. Once we have all of our
information together and ready, then we can talk with our stakeholders and discuss what they are
looking for in this project and the plans for getting started.

III.
Currently, on the campus of Portland State University, there is no place for students to
safely express themselves or meet people through a legal and personal outlet. This is very serious
considering that not having it causes certain students to feel that self-expression is nonexistent at
this University. This can lead to much depression and increased lack of interest in student
courses. Boredom also plays a role, contributing to more illegal behavior. Portland State

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University does not have a legal/safe place for students to go socialize and express themselves on
campus. This is why my group has proposed the idea of the street art wall. This wall would
provide a place that would allow students to get out of their dorms and meet people through the
wall. This would lead to people having more friendships with less bottled up emotions and
thoughts. With this you would be looking at a lower rate of depression amongst students. It
would also provide more friendships among students. Considering that there is nothing on
campus in place for students. Thus making the graffiti wall the perfect thing to help the
community become the community that the students of Portland State would want it to be.

IV.
Often, street art or graffiti, which it is commonly referred to, is viewed negatively by
society because of its connection to illicit activities. Many controversies that surround street art
continue to create disagreement amongst city officials, law enforcement, and writers who wish to
display and appreciate work in public locations. There are many different types and styles of
street art and it is a rapidly developing art form whose value is highly contested and reviled by
many authorities while also subject to protection, sometimes within the same jurisdiction. To
help alleviate this problem of illegal street art, there are organizations like Global Street Art and
Open Walls Baltimore that work towards putting up legal walls for street artists to come in and
continue their passion. They want to bring communities together and to help an emerging artform
gain reputable recognition.

V.

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Our group examines one social issue that can be a disadvantage for students at Portland
State, which is the risk of experiencing social instability and the lack of means to connect with
other people. In such a socially diverse community, there are several ways that the needs of the
community can be fully expressed through this new, physical platform that is extraordinarily
simple to use and is designed to be fully modified in ways that members of the community may
feel as a way of expression. We intend to propose this project plan to administrators that control
campus maintenance and beautification. We look to seek support from students of the
community, and university faculty and staff, especially those involved in health, arts, and
education-related fields. We find that these support groups are vital to the ongoing process of this
project, and that the design and fabrication process of the wall will be constructed by the local
stakeholders, for the community.

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References
About the Team. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from
http://globalstreetart.com/about
About Open Walls Baltimore. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from
http://openwallsbaltimore.com/About-Open-Walls-Baltimore
Mercy Corps
http://www.mercycorps.org/
StakeHolders
http://www.pdx.edu/cus/
http://www.pdx.edu/sociology/center-health-and-social-inequality-research
http://www.rri.pdx.edu/
http://www.pdx.edu/public-interest-design/