English Professor Jermaine Singleton leads students in community collaboration with the STD clinic, Red Door Clinic, in his course titled Introduction to Black Studies. His class takes students outside of a stereotypical lecture and test-based class confined within the walls of a classroom and encourages real world application of the course content.
Red Door Clinic, located at 525 Portland Ave. South in Minneapolis, provides sexual health resources, STD testing, HIV preventative treatment (such as PrEP) and work to reach communities that are not receiving the care they need. The students’ mission in their collaboration with this STD clinic is to improve community outreach and accessibility. Senior Shiloh Bowen hopes the project can help bridge the gap with minority communities that are disproportionately serviced and have been mistreated by the medical system.
“[We want to] speak to people in a way that helps them get the care that they need and that would help them be healthy without talking down to them or reminding them of bad things that have happened to them in the past,” Bowen said.
Junior Rowan Riley explained there will be a focus on communication and creating messaging based on responses the students gather through a survey.
“Our thing is going to be reaching out to people gathering that information and then being able to come up with a social media outreach plan for the Red Door Clinic to best address those issues,” Riley said.
In their class, students have learned that three out of four men of color who have sex with men are HIV positive and women of color are the fastest growing demographic of HIV infections. Singleton’s project pushes students to create materials based on data gathered from the demographics most affected.
“Believe it or not, previous outreach materials were not based on data derived from focus group research. This is where Hamline can help significantly,” Singleton said via email.
The students will work to provide new insight into issues the clinic has been facing. Senior Communications Specialist for Hennepin County Public Health Shannon Boyer will work alongside the students and looks forward to the students’ unique viewpoints.
“Having fresh perspectives is so important to this work. It is easy for folks like me who are really in the weeds of the work to forget about processes and just the new energy will be really helpful I think for students to be out in the community talking to folks,” Boyer said.
Singleton’s promotion of community engagement in his classes does not end at the Red Door Clinic. Another group of students is collaborating with Breakthrough Minneapolis, an organization that supports students on their journey to college and will work to develop tools for future educators to navigate intercultural tensions. In the fall of 2024, Singleton also had students work with the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Minneapolis. Through these collaborations, he hopes to give students the most well-rounded and applicable education they can receive.
“Civic engagement is where Hamline can connect knowledge and insight into action that affirms the public purpose of higher education. In a climate in which DEI is under siege, we’ll need to double down on its aims: student success, collaborative action, economic development, and curricular innovation,” Singleton said.
This engagement does not just benefit Hamline students, it can leave an impact on the community as well. Boyer expressed that she wants these collaborations to continue.
“I am hoping this will kind of open the door to be able to engage with students and universities more often because I think it is a really wonderful way to provide real world experience to students and also it is going to benefit the way we operate and benefit our residents and how they engage in sexual health,” Boyer said.
This project also provides new insight for the students, tackling topics that have a significant impact on the world but are not typically addressed in classrooms.
“We are partnering with an STD clinic, I’m like certainly that is not something that was happening back in the day when there wasn’t a prioritization or an acknowledgment about queer people of color having sexually transmitted diseases. I think it is really cool as a student having that taboo thing be introduced,” Riley said.
The students have just begun the collaboration but look forward to having real world application of their learning.
“I am just really excited for it, I’m really glad that I get to do something that seems to be directly benefiting people,” Bowen said.
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