Owls Rise: FAU Histories of Activism and Protests

The intended primary audience of Owl Rise: FAU Histories of Activism and Protest is FAU’s Humanities major and minor students. Specifically, students who minor in Peace, Justice, and Human Rights or Museums, Archives, and Public History, as well as students who major in History, Anthropology, or Philosophy. Due to the relevance of the topic to those various courses of study, Owl Rise: FAU Histories of Activism and Protest's primary audience is FAU Humanities students. FAU students are the primary audience for the project, as it discusses the university’s history at a relatable yet collegiate level, allowing both new and existing students to understand and connect with each sub-topic. While the project may pique the interest of any FAU student, it specifically targets those with a major or minor in the Humanities, as it reflects their prior interest and commitment to the topics discussed throughout the project. While primarily targeted towards FAU’s Humanities students, any flyers and social media posts used to promote the project would use general language to get the interest of as many students as possible. 

For our secondary audiences, we would include regional homeschool communities such as the Broward Home School Parent Support Group, South Florida Home School Resource Center, and Palm Beach County Homeschoolers. These groups ideally connect Joyce's emphasis on teaching sports fundamentals and education, which aligns with the development of youth sports. Home school families often participate in park-day learning events and recreational activities with collaborative outreach, with FAU athletic department activities such as a free fundamental softball clinics, mini referee demonstrations, one mock exhibition game or clinics through volunteer service with FAU Softball players, coaches, and the athletic department can introduce students to Joyce sport history, her quiet activism, and her model of excellence in women's sports. Several homeschooling “Park Days” can be coordinated during Women's History Month in March or a "Day of Service" in January. With former players, coaches like Chan Walker, and the athletic Department can set a pop-up stations featuring Joan Joyce material to incorporate into the homeschooler curriculum. Through Omeka, the QR code-linked exhibit materials showcase FAU softball Owl players. The player volunteers their training skills through mini-demonstrations. The outreach proposal could initiate a fundraising drive, such as a small "penny drive," collecting pennies to support homeschoolers in sports scholarships or community service projects, like repairing local softball fields. To engage local homeschooling families in the joy of volunteer labor: quiet activism, Joyce's sports legacy, education, community learning, and teamwork.

The flyer could be placed throughout FAU’s campus in various buildings' bulletin boards, including General South, the Arts and Letters Building, and the Education Building. The flyer will also be featured in Florida Atlantic University’s online and in-print newspaper, University Press (UPress), in place of an advertisement. While the social media post could be displayed on the University Press social media pages, as well as the university’s various activist clubs' Instagram pages, such as the Black Student Union (BSU), the Disabled Student Union, the Pride Student Alliance, and the Owls for Social Change. To maintain a continued interest in the project, we will reach out to professors of the courses required for the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights minor and certificate, including Introduction to Peace Studies, Rhetoric of Social Protest, and History of Human Rights and ask that within those courses if they could apply the project to their curriculum, whether as an extra credit reading assignment or as an educational tool for students about local events. This would allow the project to be viewed for many years to come, with numerous students a semester interacting and using it.

The section on student protests around social justice will have a unique outreach plan, focusing on organizing with student organizations and creating a social media site to ensure perpetuity. The best way to ensure that more people are aware about the site would be to reach out to student organizations, such as the Lavendar Alliance, in an effort to work together and co-ordinate resources to spread the word further. Additionally, to ensure that the material will last even into the future, it would be ideal to take the information and turn it into a social media site (such as Instagram or Facebook) to preserve the research. Furthermore, this site could be further updated to contain more student protests around social justice as they happen, along with protests that were not included.