With the support of a Modern Language Association Pathways Step Grant, Ursuline College partnered with The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center at Cuyahoga Community College and the non-profit organization, Teaching CLE. We were united in our commitment to teaching local students who are emplaced and rooted in the NE Ohio region and preparing them through humanities lenses to be civic actors and change-makers in a city that is often neglected in our national sphere. Our project consisted of creating three discrete opportunities for our student populations to interact. These activities centered Rust Belt futures–specifically focusing on climate change and the power of humanities storytelling to create parables of resilience in the face of complex, twenty-first century problems.

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​We made comics at the West Side Market with creator, Seqoia Bostickand gave out free books at the fruit and vegetable stands with Comics at the Corner, Literary Cleveland, Cleveland Reads , and Carol and John's Comic Book Shop . We even gave out original prints of Cleveland scenes by artist, Sina Grace!

We explored Cleveland’s lakefront—its past, present, and future—with Teaching CLE. After learning the history of the space, we connected our ideas about how the lakefront should fit in with our sense of place, and considered designs for the future.

We learned how to create natural dyes with Rust Belt Fibershed from materials in our own Northeast Ohio ecosystem—rethinking our relationship to land and place.

Reflected one student of the experience, “It change my view of seeing the beauty of Cleveland.”