April 6, 2016

In keeping with the experimental nature of the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry, its 2016-2017 fellows will work in two partnerships, creating their interdisciplinary products over two semesters of investigation into water quality and book arts.

Summer and fall 2016

Water Quality Indiana

  • Adam J. Kuban (Department of Journalism)
  • Lee J. Florea (Department of Geological Sciences)

Kuban, Florea and their students will combine geoscience and multimedia in an experiential, project-based learning environment to investigate Cardinal Creek (York Prairie Creek) between Yorktown and Daleville.

Students from multiple disciplines in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and telecommunications and journalism students will collaborate with peer networks of students from the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities, and Taylor University to conduct field and laboratory work, and then interpret that data in order to generate effective visual representations of scientific results to communicate the science and application of their findings.

The student-produced multimedia deliverables about water quality, such as learning modules, streaming multimedia content and scientific datasets, will contribute to the expansion of online resources, cyber-learning assets and scientific data archive of the Water Quality Indiana website for use by future students, researchers and the larger public. Additionally, the student-designed multimedia “data stories” will be disseminated to media outlets, professional conferences and to community partners to supplement watershed planning and community assistance grant applications, and water quality initiatives.

The seminar will work in collaboration with the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District, various environmental consultants, and other institutional and agency partners, as well as the iStudio at Ball State’s Center for Technology in Education.

Fall 2016 and spring 2017

Book Arts Collaborative

Peterson, Johnson and their students will investigate the growing, cross-disciplinary field of book arts in order to develop a Book Arts Community Collaborative in downtown Muncie, along with a Ball State interdisciplinary minor in book arts. Students from multiple disciplines, including art, English, applied technology, fashion design, architecture, journalism and majors in the Miller College of Business, will help develop the physical space of the Book Arts Collaborative.

Forging a transformative campus and community collaboration, the students will engage in a broad spectrum of book arts, including apprentice-taught crafts such as letterpress printing, bookbinding, papermaking, paper marbling, and artist's book concept development and production to produce both tangible products – journals, broadsides, greeting cards and artist's books – and intangible products – community enrichment education programs, field trips and after-school activities for school-age children as well as ongoing guided workshops for adults.

In addition to assisting and conducting community workshops and collaborating and working on book arts projects at the lab, the students will work with Wil Davis at the Ball State Innovation Connector to sell created materials through existing retail outlets and develop, maintain and further relationships with retailers, contributing to the local economy and meeting a need for makers and consumers alike. The Book Arts Collaborative will be the home of the Alice Nichols Press, which will produce a fine-bound artist’s book every year, starting in spring 2017. The seminar will work in collaboration with community partners, including Ball State's Office of Information Technology.