June brings new progress on the Seeding Sullivant project. With the benefit of grant funding, two talented Design graduate students are currently working on prototypes of the app web pages, testing different types of the media assets collected during the spring by students and developing a graphic identity for the project. Design MFA students Alice Grishchenko and Jason Tiberio have been reviewing options for web site hosts. One of the goals of this part of the process is to identify an approach to presenting our content on hand-held devices that will be adaptable by others who may wish to use the “seeding” approach to sharing the history of campus architecture and the many cultures that have inhabited it over time.

Using the outcomes of interviews and archival research conducted by undergraduate and graduate students, project participants have been reviewing and prioritizing the stories of Sullivant Hall’s past that were collected throughout the spring semester. One of the major challenges in making these decisions is sorting out information that is location-specific within the building from that which is generally associated but not tied to a particular place. Since the project is centered on the concept of encouraging people to learn about the places they occupy by actually going to a space to learn about it, identifying and figuring out how to best present location-specific content is critical to the project’s success. This work will be ongoing throughout the summer as we expand the prototype that Alice and Jason are helping to develop.