ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the creation of the Social Justice Tour of Corvallis, a college student-led project using high-impact educational practices. Using a combination of description and narrative, the author provides a brief explanation for the history and collaborative design of the walking tour, discusses its potentials and pitfalls in terms of pedagogy and learning at the college level, and provides reflections about interdisciplinary learning and community engagement. The chapter describes how this tour developed from a hands-on archival research methods course that brings together ethnic studies and cultural geography. It discusses the impact of including the project within a faculty and administrator professional development seminar, the Difference, Power, and Discrimination program. The author offers concrete suggestions on how student research can be directed toward affective, narrative, and speculative non-fiction techniques that generate effective and powerful local stories addressing race, gender, sexuality, and indigeneity. The author provides a template for creating similar tours, including in less diverse locations, like the semi-rural, largely white community at Oregon State University. The outcomes of the tour project suggest that such projects are effective tools for teaching research skills as well as crafting belonging for students of color, indigenous students, and other marginalized communities.
