Sixteen Ball State students traveled to Ferguson, Mo., to interview citizens about their impressions of recent events after the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a police officer in 2014.
A white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, on Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo., following a confrontation. Brown was unarmed.
The police officer, Darren Wilson, was cleared of all wrongdoing in the incident.
The students, who were part of an immersive learning class, presented their project right before the Fall Semester ended. “Voices from Ferguson” was the result of a year’s worth of work and research.
The course was led in part by Bryan Byers, a criminal justice and criminology professor. He said it took more than a year of preparation to actually teach the class.
The display included information from these interviews, along with creative expressions from students based on their experiences.
Byers also worked with Ione DeOllos, a sociology associate professor, on the project.
“[DeOllos] and I have known each other professionally for over 20 years," Byers said. "We have shared interests in criminal justice, qualitative methods and social justice. We wanted to combine these interests and came up with the course idea."
Buddy Jones, a junior sociology major, was interested in the project primarily for his love of people, he said.
“Secondly, I was interested in this project before I knew of its existence," Jones said. "I am a white male that has had little exposure to outright racism but have had relationships with people of other races and have experienced racism on their behalf."
Jones wanted the project to show that racism is still prevalent in society today. Along with the interviews he conducted, he also created comparison images from protests and riots of the 1960s and those from Ferguson, a photo collage and a poem.
Jamell Johnson, a senior criminal justice major and sociology minor, felt personally connected to the project, as he considers race relations “a big problem” in his life.
“When it comes to this project, I feel that the impact it has alone should change people’s personal perspectives on how racism affects America,” Johnson said. “Also, the impact I want to make with this project would just be making people aware of what’s going on in the world and actually giving them accurate information outside of what the media representation feeds them.”
The display will also travel to Ferguson and eventually return to Muncie for additional local and regional exposure.
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