Culturally Responsive Community Engagement Programming and The University Library: Lessons Learned From Half A Decade of VTDITC

4/19/2021 Culturally Responsive Community Engagement Programming and the University Library: Lessons Learned from Half a Decade
a Decade of VTDIT…
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4/19/2021 Culturally Responsive Community Engagement Programming and the University Library: Lessons Learned from Half a Decade of VTDIT…
ENGAGEMENT
PROGRAMMING
AND THE
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY: LESSONS
LEARNED FROM
HALF A DECADE OF
VTDITC
By Craig E. Arthur, Dr. Freddy Paige, La’ Portia
Perkins, Jasmine Weiss, and Dr. Michael Williams
(Good Homie Signs’ “Hip Hop @ VT” mural 7/18)
In Brief
VTDITC: Hip Hop Studies at Virginia Tech is an

award-winning series of experiential learning-
focused, culturally responsive community
engagement programs. It is deeply rooted in hip
hop culture and is cosponsored by numerous
organizations both on campus and in the
community; the heart of the program is
undoubtedly the Virginia Tech University Libraries.
We have hosted more than 350 programs over the
past ve academic years. Notably, our Community
Engagement Fellows, a team of undergraduate
and graduate students, helped design and co-
teach approximately forty- ve media literacy
workshops in the community beyond campus in
the ‘19-’20 academic year. Our guiding mission is to
remove barriers to entry, to recognize art as
scholarship, to learn by doing, and, importantly, to
create an expressive and collaborative environment
which allows for creative freedom.
Introduction
VTDITC: Hip Hop Studies at Virginia Tech, or, more
commonly, Virginia Tech Digging in the Crates, is a
practitioner-focused, student-driven, culturally
responsive community engagement program that
prioritizes experiential learning. The multifaceted
and ever-evolving program is based in Southwest
Virginia on the campus of Virginia Tech (a public,
land grant university with a student body of
approximately 30,000). VTDITC was co-created by a
diverse transdisciplinary team and is now in our
fth consecutive academic year of programming.
The program has iteratively developed since the
Fall 2016 semester; we have successfully hosted
more than 350 events.
Importantly, VTDITC builds on a 22 year history of

hip hop based curricula and approximately 35 years
of hip hop based co-curricular programming at the
University. VTDITC’s ability to connect and engage
such a large group of people is a special attribute
of the program. Many universities have similar
clubs or groups that bring together dancers with
dancers or rappers with rappers, for instance, but
VTDITC is a unique community engagement
program in that it prioritizes unity over
strati cation. The hip hop community at VT can be
relatively small if people were counted solely by an
arbitrary declaration like ‘hip hop scholar.’ However,
when we invite our community to engage in hip
hop as a culture, our participation numbers dwarf
many other programs that could be considered
our peers. VTDITC’s success is at least partially due
to the fact that a dynamic group of hip hop
practitioners who embody the culture beyond our
connection to the University co-create and care for
it. We shift the university setting and resources to
support hip hop culture, not the other way around.
This article does not aim to chronicle the important

role hip hop culture plays in education and college
campuses (see Rawls & Robinson, 2019, as well as
Petchauer, 2009 and 2012, Gosa & Fields, 2012, and
Nielson, 2013) nor does it seek to record hip hop
culture’s history at Virginia Tech (see Fralin, et al.,
2018). We also are not seeking to describe a hip hop
ethos (see Harrison and Arthur, 2019). Rather, we
look forward to sharing this case study as an
exemplar of culturally responsive programming
supported by a university library. In this article we
explain how as engaged scholars we commit to
understanding the role of culture in education as
exible, local, and global.
Hit the Crates & Create

The VTDITC community chose our name as a way
to recognize one of the many research processes
inherent to traditional hip hop arts communities as
well as a nod to speci c cultural stalwarts. The
term ‘digging in the crates’ refers to the traditional
information seeking/archival research process that
hip hop DJs and sample-based producers use to
nd their source material. Digging,
understandably, is the physical and intellectual
labor of the discovery process in this context – or
the work required to locate, sort, and analyze vinyl
records. The crates are the acid free archival box
equivalent for the vinyl DJ. A DJ or producer who
spends time in the crates has a larger musical
vocabulary as a result – just as time spent in library
archives bene ts a research writer (Craig, 2013 &
Rice, 2003). Beyond our name, the VTDITC program
utilizes effective engagement practices from the
broader hip hop community to increase the reach
of the Virginia Tech University Libraries’
programming. Providing opportunities for
community members to engage with hip hop
culture’s productions old and new, local and global,
is an objective of many of our efforts.
Our Guiding Principles and Mission

Statement
Early in the development of the program, our
Leadership Board co-created our guiding
principles: to remove barriers to entry, to recognize
art as scholarship, to learn by doing, and, arguably
most importantly, to establish an expressive and
collaborative environment which allows for creative
freedom. Nearly half a decade later, applying these
principles still guides the program in the direction

of success.
Our mission statement was created shortly after

founding the program. Although it has been
remixed and edited slightly over the years, the
essence has remained the same. The latest
iteration of our mission statement is as follows:
Hip Hop Studies at

Virginia Tech, or VTDITC,
exists to foster
community-based
learning among hip
hop artists, fans,
practitioners, and
scholars digitally and
globally. We aim to
model that students,
faculty, and staff’s
personal interests are
worthy of academic
study and publication

as well as further
institutionalize Hip Hop
Studies’ presence on
Virginia Tech’s campus.
Another motivator that guides our programming is

the need to challenge the white heteronormativity
of higher education and, especially, library spaces
(Rosa & Henke, 2017). We build upon the work of
scholars such as Ladson-Billings (1995, 2014), Gay
(2000), and Rawls and Robinson (2019) in an effort
to nurture both the shared and divergent cultural
backgrounds and sensibilities of our community
members. Removing misconceptions that speci c
groups are not to be included in the socially
constructed identity of a hip hop scholar or
practitioner requires intentional effort toward
increasing representation of excluded identities.
Recognizing that hip hop culture was birthed and
nurtured in Black and brown working class
communities, our Leadership Board prioritizes
creating opportunities for hip hop arts
practitioners and scholars of color. Beyond
considering race and ethnicity, we are deliberate
about requiring gender parity among
compensated guest artists and scholars. These are
two examples of how the VTDITC community acts
as agents of change to redress historical and
contemporary oppression in educational spaces

(NYSED, N.D.).
The Origins of VTDITC

The rst meeting of what would eventually
become our Leadership Board, the program’s
decision making body, took place on December 9,
2016 in Newman Library. Newman is Virginia Tech’s
main campus library. It is also home to a modest
recording studio (now known as Media Design
Studio B). The focus of this initial meeting was to
create a monthly hip hop-focused seminar series
that would take place in the largest venue in
Newman, the Multipurpose Room or MPR. Volume
1: Intro to DJing and Fair Use occurred a couple of
months later in February 2017.
Along with the University Libraries, representatives

from a variety of both student organizations and
campus units served as co-sponsors and worked
hard to make the event a success. To start the
event, students Dylan Holiday and Alayna Carey
(Alayna is a member of our Leadership Board at
present) taught a workshop with librarian Craig
Arthur. The workshop addressed the intersections
and divergences of DJing and fair use principles.
Afterwards, the sixty or so attendees had the
opportunity to each try their hand at DJing with a
variety of equipment set up for their use. The vast
majority of the equipment belonged to members
of the Leadership Board. Virginia Tech’s own
Breaking (also known as breakdancing) Club
ended the event with an informal cypher. The
event’s sponsoring organizations included the
Africana Studies Program, the Black Cultural
Center, the Flowmigos (another name for the VT
Breaking Club), the Intercultural Engagement
Center, the Gloria D. Smith Professorship in Black

Studies, Students of Hip Hop Legacy (a club related
to hip hop fandom), VT Expressions (a club focused
on hosting open mic events), the VT Women’s
Center, and WUVT 90.7FM (the University’s
student-run radio station). This workshop is now
considered a foundational component of our
seminar series. It kicks off every year as a welcome
event to our community members both old and
new. The second iteration of this workshop
received front-page coverage in the local
newspaper; the article highlighted how hip hop
culture was connecting students, faculty, staff, and
community members in the Newman Library
(Korth, 2018). (For an approximation of the vibes at
this recurring workshop, see VTDITC, 2018A.)
The Six Elements of VTDITC: Hip Hop

Studies at Virginia Tech
VTDITC is comprised of six main components: 1) the
seminar series, 2) media literacy workshops, 3)
weekly studio hours, 4) the community
engagement fellows program, 5) credit-bearing
curriculum, and 6) practitioners for hire. Each of
these elements serves a unique subset of our
community; for instance, the audience of our
media literacy workshops are typically K-12
students while our practitioners for hire element
connects local artists with campus units for
opportunities for the artists to be compensated for
their talents. While the program originated with
the seminar series, the majority of our labor is
spent on the other components.
1) The Seminar Series: VT’s Longest

Running Monthly Event
Since that rst seminar in February 2017, we have

hosted 22 additional iterations of the seminar.
Approximately two dozen artists and scholars from
beyond the campus have been compensated to
share their expertise with the community we
foster. The series, which takes place (originally in-
person, now virtually [due to COVID-19], and, in due
time hopefully, both virtually and in-person) on the
second or third Thursday evenings of September,
October, November, February, March, and April.
Our seminars speci cally occur during these
months because that is when the regular school
semesters take place. December and May are
skipped due to the harried nature of the exam
season.
The seminars have addressed a wide range of

topics including but not limited to gender, artistic
ethics, heteronormativity, entrepreneurship, race,
and police brutality. A recent example of how we
addressed a topic using a hip hop lens was at our
seminar VTDITC Volume 22: Hip Hop & Police
Brutality. We hosted several scholars to discuss
how hip hop music has long documented police
violence. We selected hip hop songs that featured
lyrics chronicling artists’ personal interactions with
police over the course of three decades.
Throughout this seminar, we conducted a group
temporal analysis of how artists use their music to
express the climate of police brutality across time
periods and geographic differences. Ideally each
year the planning committee develops seminars
that directly discuss music creation as well as
seminars that engage other hip hop practitioners
in topics such as dance, the visual arts, journalism,
and entrepreneurship.
While including academic voices is important,

intentionally prioritizing the perspectives of hip
hop arts practitioners is essential to our program.
Our seminar series does not regularly follow the
typical academic panel format. Even the events
that do resemble a more traditional academic
seminar feature a single artistic performance at a
minimum. The information discussed in our
seminars applies and appeals to a wide range of
individuals. As a result, attendees include Virginia
Tech students, faculty, staff, that of nearby
institutions, and community members from the
broader New River Valley and Roanoke Valley. As a
result of the COVID-19 pandemic, guests must now
virtually attend our seminars. Over the past few
months, we have had individuals from across the
United States check out our events. Previously
(before COVID-19), guests would need to physically
come to Virginia Tech’s Newman Library to attend
these events.
When attendees arrive at our seminars, they are

greeted by a live DJ mix of hip hop music curated
by our own DJ C. Sharp. After the welcome mix, the
event’s Creative Director and MC (roles currently
occupied by Jasmine and La’ Portia) bring the
community together for announcements. We
begin by expressing gratitude to our community
partners as well as acknowledging the
Tutelo/Monacan Nations as well as the enslaved
African people (Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus
was formerly the site of the Smith eld Plantation)
who occupied this land before us. Following our
announcements and land acknowledgements, we
introduce our artists, scholars, and/or practitioners
and they begin their presentations. Throughout
the seminar there are often exercises where the
community interacts with the practitioners. When

meeting in person, food was provided midway
through the seminar for the community to share.
This feature of our seminar series symbolizes a hip
hop tradition of breaking bread, but also serves as
an opportunity to (albeit marginally) help reduce
food scarcity on campus (US GAO, 2019). At the
conclusion of our seminar, we make sure to allow
time for an open question and answer session so
that the community can have another opportunity
to engage with the practitioners and as well as
each other. We have also hosted numerous more
participatory, performance-based events such as
beat and MC battles. (See VTDITC, 2018B for
highlights of our second annual beat battle as an
example of how we are reimagining the seminar
format.)
(Some members of the VTDITC Leadership Board

9/17; L-R: Eric Luu (‘18-’19 Creative Director, VT ‘19),
Craig Arthur (University Libraries), Juel Downing
(Black Cultural Center Student Assistant ‘17-’18, VT
‘18), Yamin Semali (Atlanta-based MC, Producer, DJ,
& Recording Engineer), Mallory Foutch (former
Program Coordinator, VT Women’s Center), and Dr.
A. Kwame Harrison (Professor, Department of

Sociology & the Africana Studies Program); image
courtesy of Richard Randolph [VT ‘20])
2) Do Things for the Kids: Media

Literacy Workshops for the Broader
Community
This important component predates the program
and is arguably our community’s favorite element
of the VTDITC program. Craig has offered free DJ
classes throughout the New River Valley for close
to a decade. He had already integrated his twenty-
year DJ practice into his librarian praxis prior to
joining Virginia Tech. Recognizing that Virginia
Tech University Libraries was in the process of
creating its Digital Literacy Initiative shortly after
his arrival, he realized that these workshops would
dovetail well with many of the learning outcomes
therein and could support the Initiative’s efforts.
Since that time, we have offered more than 100
creation-focused workshops for the larger
community.
Throughout the years, some of our more regular

community partners have included – but are by no
means limited to – the Boys and Girls Clubs of
Southwest Virginia, numerous iterations of the
local alumnae chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha
Sorority, Incorporated’s annual STEAM Camp,
Roanoke Public Libraries, Higher Achievement,
Incorporated, Vinton Public Library, and the West
End Center for Youth. Each of these organizations
excels in providing programming to populations
that Virginia Tech has traditionally underserved.
Although the pandemic has put a temporary stop

to our in-person media literacy workshops, we are
currently re-developing our lesson plans to work in
an online synchronous learning environment. We
have hosted three such virtual workshops this
semester. Our workshops previously prioritized
providing both access to music production
equipment and utilizing an experiential learning
approach to connect hip hop’s creative practices to
STEAM education. Science, Technology,
Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM)
education is enhanced by hip hop practices which
encourage students to engage in inquiry, dialogue,
and critical thinking. Unlike STEM, the addition of
the arts component adds opportunities for
students to thrive and connect with abstract
concepts (Liao, 2016). While it is dif cult to replicate
the hands-on experience – such as time with
turntables, records, DJ mixers, samplers, drum
machines, and microphones – the online
environment is well equipped for other creative
practices like writing raps, critiques, and
re ections. Online students are also able to engage
activities which allow them to explore the
relationship of beats per minute in a song and
other numerical factors. Engineering is an
emerging area of interest in the VTDITC media
literacy workshops. We hope to explore the
connection between the built environment and
community impacts. Hip hop artists regularly
communicate their experiences within their
environmental context. Billboard charting hip hop
artists have published songs that re ect the
impacts that natural disasters, environmental
injustice, and unsafe infrastructure systems have
had on Black communities. Through a lyrical
analysis of songs to introduce engineering issues,
students are encouraged to consider engineering

as a career path to serve their communities.
3) Cooking Up: Studio Hours

Studio Hours are a weekly (every Friday afternoon)
three hour open studio session for any member of
our VTDITC community to record, re ne the mixes
of their existing recordings, write new material, and
seek guidance from their fellow artists.
Importantly, Studio Hours serves as a fellowship-
focused space and a markedly strong community
of practice is evident. This component of the
program began in the Spring semester of 2018 and
has persisted since. It takes place in the location of
our initial planning meeting back in December
2016: Media Design Studio B in Newman Library.
MDS B offers a recording booth, several audio
interfaces, condenser microphones, and two
computer workstations – one for audio recording
and mixing and another for audio-visual
production and/or audio pre-production work. The
studio can comfortably accommodate
approximately a dozen people. We prioritize the
artists’ comfort and have long been intentional
about not overpacking MDS B. The VTDITC
community has not only hosted the longest
continuous program in MDS B with Studio Hours,
we have also provided valuable user feedback to
the team that runs the space. Our programming
has helped transition the space and equipment
therein from a faculty-focused curriculum
development lab to a more outwardly-focused
recording studio marketed to the broader
community.
Numerous songs have been recorded in MDS B by

VTDITC community members during Studio Hours.
Students retain ownership of their work and are

guided through the process of publishing their
music in both digital and analog formats. The
Black Cultural Center Mixtape is an example of a
community project that came into being largely as
a result of Studio Hours. The BCC Mixtape can be
found on Virginia Tech’s Black Cultural Center’s
Soundcloud page; it was a long term, intensive
project that was the brainchild of former BCC
Director Kimberly Williams. The project’s
production, which took place over the course of
two semesters, was largely orchestrated by the
VTDITC community.
VTDITC students have also performed live on

WUVT90.7fm, the University’s student-run radio
station, and as opening acts for several major
artists when they have performed on campus. We
are particularly proud that multiple VTDITC alumni
have gained employment in creative arts-focused
organizations. Many have continued their
connection to VTDITC by collaborating with the
current community. We have also hosted regionally
and internationally renowned artists and recording
engineers as a component of our Studio Hours
program. They include Stimulator Jones, Tim
Donovan, Omar Offendum, Sum, Ian Levy, and
Emcee Lioness. As a result of these particular
studio sessions, several collaborative songs have
been released; they feature students, faculty
members, and community members.
Each semester, a VTDITC community member –

often the Lead Technical Director – serves as the
resident recording engineer and Studio Hours
community manager. We also attempt – with
varying degrees of success – to ensure that we
have an aspiring engineer in the wings to sustain
the program’s momentum. There are relatively

many Virginia Tech students who create their own
music, but there are a limited number of students
wanting to learn the engineering process
necessary to record music. As a result, we
intentionally promote the engineer
mentor/mentee experience in hopes that we nd
interested individuals. Our current Creative
Director, Jasmine, has expressed interest in music
engineering and our Leadership Board is working
to ensure that our current Lead Technical Director
shares all of their knowledge. These student
leaders have been essential to the success of our
constantly evolving and co-constructed studio
etiquette guidelines as well. The guidelines
ultimately re ect the values of the program and, in
turn, ensure that the media co-created during
Studio Hours is indicative of what we are trying to
accomplish as a community. Since the guidelines
are prominently on display and reiterated at each
of our sessions, they rarely need to be actively
enforced.
(VTDITC Studio Etiquette guidelines – Fall 2019)
4) Learning by Doing: The VTDITC

Community Engagement Fellows
The faculty members on the Leadership Board
created the VTDITC Community Engagement
Fellows program as a way to intentionally transfer
skills. Students apply to partner with faculty
members and dedicate time speci cally to
cultivating their expertise. This requires a relational
process of shared responsibility with students and
faculty. Inasmuch, the VTDITC Community
Engagement Fellows program helped us achieve

an aspirational goal – to increase the agency of
students within the community. The fellows – a
team of approximately half a dozen undergraduate
and graduate students – are essential to the
success of our seminar series, our media literacy
workshops, and Studio Hours. Fellows comprise an
interdisciplinary team that represent a wide swath
of campus life and student organizations.
Oftentimes, the seemingly sole unifying feature of
this team is that nearly all of the fellows are hip hop
arts practitioners – be it DJs, MCs, beat makers,
visual artists, or dancers.
Each fellow is classi ed as either a technical

director or a creative director depending on their
interests and skill sets. The technical directors, led
by a Lead Technical Director, are responsible for the
more mechanical aspects such as setting up and
striking equipment as well as DJing and running
audiovisual equipment (and, lately, monitoring
chat and moderating attendees) during our
programs. The creative directors, led by a Lead
Creative Director, handle the more visionary
aspects of the program. They help determine the
upcoming topics for our seminar series and
identify artists and scholars with whom we should
engage. They also shape the visual and virtual
identity of the program via graphic design and
actively maintaining our social media presence.
Despite the differentiation of duties, both technical
and creative directors play an active role in co-
designing and co-leading our media literacy
workshops. Inasmuch, the VTDITC program allows
for unrivaled and, importantly, compensated
experiential learning opportunities on campus and
in the community. Numerous alums are now
working in hip hop arts-based or adjacent

professions – as recording engineers in commercial
studies or as a community manager for an
international breaking school, for example – due in
part to this experience.
5) Not So Formal Learning: The

Curricular Components
VTDITC is, without question, a largely co-curricular
program. However, along with founding
Leadership Board member Dr. A. Kwame Harrison,
Craig has co-taught two iterations of a credit
bearing course that was directly tied to the VTDITC
program: Africana Studies 4354/Sociology 4124:
Foundations of Hip Hop. This course was offered in
Fall 2017 (63 students) and Spring 2019 (39
students). In keeping with the emphasis on
experiential learning evident in the rest of the
VTDITC program, students were afforded the
opportunity to create media projects rather than
traditional academic essays in both iterations of
this course. Many students made use of the
resources – equipment loans and the Media Design
Studio B, for instance – provided to them by the
University Libraries to do so.
We have partnered with the Department of

Sociology and the Africana Studies program,
largely thanks to Dr. Harrison, to co-teach several
independent study courses as well. Foci of these
courses have included MCing, coordinating events
on campus, and internships in commercial
recording studios.
6) You Can’t Pay Your Bills with

Exposure: Practitioners For Hire
As previously mentioned, the VTDITC program

intentionally prioritizes hip hop arts practitioners in
all that we do. We do our best to leverage our
campus relationships to connect these
practitioners with compensated work. There are
typically many opportunities – and unfortunately
the majority pay with only exposure – for visual
artists, DJs, photographers, videographers, and
dancers to share their work on a college campus.
Over the years, we have successfully connected
members of our community with rare paid
opportunities provided by the University.
One example of our practitioners for hire

component is the relationship we have fostered
with North Carolina based muralist Good Homie
Signs and the University. Good Homie has created
six of the seven murals (the remaining mural was
created by MEME of the CBS and Few & Far crews)
VTDITC has coordinated since the beginning of the
program. “Narrative Art”, commissioned in April
2019 for a co-sponsored program on the rhetorics
of graf ti with the Department of English and Dr.
Jonathan Gross (Purdue University), has been on
display in a popular meeting room in Shanks Hall,
the home of the English Department, since June of
last year. This component of the VTDITC program is
an innovation to the best of our knowledge; we
hope to continue to connect hip hop arts
practitioners with similar paid opportunities on our
campus in the coming years.
(Good Homie Signs’ “Narrative Art”

mural completed 4/19 and permanently installed in
the Department of English’s conference room –
6/19)
(Good Homie Signs’ Ut Prosim [or “that I may

serve” – the University’s motto] mural completed
9/20 and installed permanently in Newman Library
10/20; note: third image courtesy of Cat Piper [VT
‘21])
(Good Homie Signs’ Bobcat Studios mural

completed 11/20 and located in the Bobcat Studios
recording studio at Radford High School [Radford,

VA])
The Voice of the Community

To help assess the program, community members
are asked to share their feedback. The following
quotes are excerpts from testimonials, post-event
interviews, and event planning meetings. Quotes
were selected to describe how members of our
community speak to the connection that the
VTDITC programming supports.
“Even outside of
breaking, VTDITC
always brings a really
cool vibe to whatever
they have going on,
whether it’s a rap sesh
or Craig spinning
records or even just
chilling and talking
about current issues. It’s
like a hip hop family,
which is nice to see

anywhere, especially in
a place like Blacksburg.”
– Virgil Thornton
Love is an important
ingredient in our events
to balance the work
required to discuss the
tough issues our
community faces.
Academia is dominated
with debates and
lectures, and while both
of those formats are
present in VTDITC
programming, many of
the discussions at our

events are modeled to
mimic a family dinner
conversation. Food is
present and our crowd
separates into small
focus groups.
“My favorite memories

were the beat battles–
more speci cally,
seeing professors and
students compete,
champion, and show a
bombastic love for each
other.”
– Kimberly Williams
Breaking down hierarchy is extremely important to

empower voices. The VTDITC community creates
opportunities for faculty, staff, students, and non-

University af liated community members to
compete on a level playing eld. Healthy
competition allows for supportive energy to be
transferred from the community into individuals
and their creations. Many of the artistic works
shared in our competitions are works in progress
that are improved through community input.
“VTDITC is more than a

library program; it is a
community program,
yet I continue to discuss
its connection to the
library and my
librarianship. This is
because working with
VTDITC showed me the
value of leaving the
library to listen to the
people the library
serves, and this is a
lesson I am extremely
grateful for as it makes
me a better librarian.”
– Kodi Saylor
“I learned to listen
better, respect better,
and uplift better by
being in that
environment, which is
something that came
about naturally because
that positive energy
was already present.”
– Jon Kabongo
Listening to others and valuing what they have to

say is a non-negotiable community requirement of
VTDITC. The success of the VTDITC program is
greatly due to our ability to listen to what
community members want and need. Our
community members feel listened to and
reciprocate our efforts by listening to others at our
events. Virginia Tech has aspirational community
guidelines which unfortunately are not always
upheld. Our community is not without aw, but it
is apparent that we are committed to superseding
the expectations and standards of the broader
university environment. We are not building a
utopia but an incredible amount of trust is being
developed within our community where open mics
and vulnerable identities co-exist.
Plans for the Future

We feel con dent that we have the program more
or less dialed in both in practice and in theory,
however we would like to increase the number of
people that participate in the program. To date, the
VTDITC community has been funded largely by the
University Libraries (approximately $10,000-$15,000
per year) via departmental support for outreach
programming as well as by nancial support from
campus units and internal grants. The vast majority
of these funds have gone directly to student
wages, artist and scholar honorariums, and
purchasing the equipment necessary to support
the program. We have received several internal
grants (ranging from $500 to $10,000) in additional
funding. To increase our impact in the broader
community, we plan to aggressively seek external
funding and sponsorships beyond campus.
Additionally, we also hope to further re ne our

programmatic assessment. Qualitative data have
been collected from events and engagements
which has helped VTDITC grow. A student
collected several testimonials at our events as a
part of a journalism project which was continued
by our event staff in hopes of nding opportunities
for improvement. Participant testimonials have
helped tune the amount of time allotted for
discussion at events as well as the importance of
communicating to students opportunities to
become the hosts of our events. Testimonial data
also helped the VTDITC event team create “no-
photos please” lanyards to protect student privacy,
especially when engaging in politicized topics.
Planning meetings for VTDITC events are open to
anyone, and insights provided by visiting
community members have improved our events –
especially as new topics are explored in
conjunction with new partners. In particular,
visiting community members have helped us take
an iterative approach to how we promote our
events and spread the reach of our programming.
VTDITC hosts the most attended and longest

running series in the Newman Library, and while
the participation rates are impressive, we strive to
develop richer quantitative measures of success to
explore and assess the program’s success. With the
program growing in scale, quantitative measures
are beginning to become more applicable for
measuring program success through standard
statistical procedures. For our online
programming, which has connected over 160
participants in the same virtual meeting, a survey
is being designed to accompany our registration
process which will collect likert scale data to record
participant perceptions of engagement and

knowledge gains. This likert scale data will be
recorded and used to help the Leadership and
Advisory Boards make decisions about the
program’s trajectory. We also plan to leverage this
data as evidence of the program’s impact for
external grant funding.
Conclusion
Community practices are established over long
periods of time. Although the program is almost
half a decade old, VTDITC is just getting started.
Constructing, deconstructing, and re-envisioning
the program has been a repetitive process.
Working in the university environment, VTDITC was
designed to be dynamic and capable of growing
even with a large number of individuals whose
tenures are relatively brief. Many challenges are
present when engaging with communities as
volatile as those in higher education, especially
with respect to continuity, trust, and funding. Our
guiding principles and engagement practices help
to mitigate several common failures. Post
graduation VTDITC students have open lines of
communication with the program and provide
guidance to the generations that follow. VTDITC
only engages in community partnerships that are
designed to meet community needs, and prioritize
community empowerment, not the further
establishment of the academic institution.
Financial constraints are considered opportunities
to develop alternate paths towards success, while
maintaining a high standard for the quality of our
outputs. While the VTDITC community cannot be
duplicated at other institutions, by presenting our
process, we hope to provide others with the ability
to sample our program to create their own sound

engagement practices with their community.
Acknowledgements
This article would not have been possible without
the scores of students, artists, community
members, as well as Virginia Tech faculty and staff
who have played varying – but all vital – roles in the
VTDITC crew over the last half decade.
Arthur J. Boston, Ian Beilin, and Ryan Randall’s

formal peer-reviews were also invaluable as we
wrote, remixed, and reworked this articles’
numerous drafts. Thank you for your patience,
kindness, and support.
The VTDITC community dedicates our work to the

memory of:
James “Trigganamatree” Maples (5/23/93-10/8/18) –
the reigning VTDITC MC Battle ChampionChris “DJ
G-Wiz” Gwaltney (3/12/87-11/21/20) – early supporter
of the program and co-teacher of numerous
VTDITC media literacy workshops
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Appendix
VTDITC: A Rough and Incomplete Timeline
5/29/2016: Craig was invited by Dr. Karen Davis

to teach a DJ-based media literacy workshop
for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated’s
Tau Mu Omega Chapter’s rst STEAM Camp.
The camp happened on the campus of Radford
University which was both Dr. Davis’ and Craig’s
employer at the time. Although Craig had been
DJing for 18 years and had taught numerous
individuals the craft by this point, this workshop
was the rst time he had the opportunity to
teach a group of middle school students from a
media literacy perspective.
6/4/2016: Craig was invited back to teach a DJ-
based media literacy workshop for Alpha Kappa
Alpha Sorority, Inc.’s Tau Mu Omega Chapter’s
second annual STEAM Camp. This collaboration
continues annually to the present.
9/10/2016: Craig began working at his alma
mater in the role of Teaching & Learning
Engagement Librarian.
12/9/2016: The rst meeting of what would
become the VTDITC Leadership Board took
place in what is now the Media Design Studio B

in Newman Library.
2/14/2017: VTDITC collaborated with Roanoke
Public Libraries for the For The Love of Hip Hop
program at their main branch. RPL and VTDITC
have partnered roughly a dozen times over the
interceding years and our relationship with RPL
is one unquestionably one of our strongest
community partnerships.
2/16/2017: VTDITC vol 1: Intro to DJing & Fair Use.
This event – along with every other in-person
seminar series event – took place in Newman
Library’s Multipurpose Room. VT students Dylan
Holliday and Alayna Carey served as workshop
co-teachers alongside Craig. Alayna (VT Class of
‘20) is still a member of the VTDITC Leadership
Board.
3/16/2017-3/18/2017: First VT Hip Hop
Appreciation Weekend – a three day
collaboration between Students of Hip Hop
Legacy, the Flowmigos/VT Breaking Club, and
VTDITC – occurred.
3/16/2017: VTDITC vol 2: Hip Hop
Entrepreneurship featured DJ Zomanno (Los
Angeles based DJ and VT alum), Justin Kim (Los
Angeles based musican and model), and VT
student Nathan Zed. Dr. A. Kwame Harrison (VT
Department of Sociology and Africana Studies
Program) moderated the discussion.
3/18/2017: Give Me A Break 3 versus 3 B-Boy/B-
Girl Jam (sponsored by the Flowmigos/VT
Breaking Club with assistance from VTDITC)
took place in the Newman Library Multipurpose
Room.
4/20/2017: VTDITC vol 3: Gender & Hip Hop
featured legendary poet and VT faculty Nikki
Giovanni. VT PhD student Corey Miles and the
Black Cultural Center’s Director Kimberly

Williams moderated the discussion.
9/14/2017: VTDITC vol 4: Beat Battle & Music
Production Workshop featured Yamin Semali
(Atlanta based producer, DJ, MC, and recording
engineer). Local music producer Electrobro won
rst place.
10/12/2017: VTDITC vol 5: MC Battle & Workshop
featured DayTripper (Atlanta based producer,
DJ, and MC) and Emcee Lioness (Maryland
based MC and VT alum). Trigganamatree (aka
James Maples who passed tragically the
following year) won the battle.
11/2/2017: VTDITC vol 6: Hip Hop & Digital
Literacy featured Dr. AD Carson (UVA
Department of Music), Sum (Los Angeles based
MC), VT student Nathan Zed, and Stimulator
Jones (Roanoke based musician). Dr. A. Kwame
Harrsion moderated the discussion.
Spring semester 2018: We began hosting
VTDITC Studio Hours in what is now the Media
Design Studio B in Newman Library. The
sessions occurred from 11am to 2pm every
Friday that semester as well as during the
summer.
2/11/2018-2/17/2018: VTDITC
Artist/Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Los Angeles
based artist Sum served as the University
Libraries rst (and only thus far)
artist/entrepreneur in residence. Sum met with
over 30 members of the campus community
during his residency. Afterwards he presented a
document with numerous recommendations
and debriefed interested members of the
University Libraries with his ndings via a virtual
meeting.
2/15/2018: VTDITC vol 7: The Hour Challenge – a

collaborative music creation competition – took
place. Three teams of approximately half a
dozen randomly chosen local hip hop artists
were given an hour to create a full song. The
crowd picked their favorite at the conclusion of
the event. Logistically it was a nightmare but it
all worked out somehow. Recap video
2/28/2018: The Roanoke Times publishes a front
page story on the VTDITC program.
3/15/2018-3/17/2018: 2nd Annual VT Hip Hop
Appreciation Weekend transpired. SOHHL, the
Flowmigos, and VTDITC served as co-sponsors.
3/15/2018: VTDITC vol 8: Hip Hop & Liberation
featured Dr. Brandy Faulkner (VT Department
of Political Science), Omar Offendum (Los
Angeles based MC), Dumi Right (VT alum and
Virginia based MC), and Saba Taj (Durham
based visual artist). Recap video
3/17/2018: VTDITC Park Jam featured muralists
Icue (Atlanta) and Good Homie Signs (North
Carolina) as well as Atlanta based DJ and MC
Daytripper.
4/19/2018: VTDITC vol 9: Gender & Hip Hop II
featured Blair Ebony Smith (University) and
Kyesha Jennings (NC State). Recap video
Fall semester 2018: VTDITC Studio Hours
continued in MDS B. We altered hours to
Fridays from 2 to 5 to better serve our
community’s needs.
8/23/2018: The Hip Hop @ VT Exhibit opened in
Newman Library. This exhibit – which was
created in collaboration with the University
Libraries’ Course Exhibits Program – was on
display on the main oor of Newman Library
through nearly the entirety of the fall semester.
Mural timelapse video
9/20/2018: VTDITC vol 10: Intro to DJing & Fair

Use – the Return consisted of a workshop by
Craig and numerous VT DJs/students who also
served as small group coaches. Recap video
10/11/2018: VTDITC vol 11: Beat Battle & Music
Production Workshop featured BeatsByJBlack
(Northern Virginia based music producer) and
was hosted by VT student Eric Luu. VT student
SamWMTA won rst place. Mike Abstrakt, a
Roanoke-based high school student and music
producer, took home second place. Recap video
11/12/2018: VTDITC vol 12: Hip Hop & Mental
Health featured Dr. Ian Levy (Manhattan
College), Dr. Freddy Paige (Virginia Tech
Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering), Dr. Brandy Faulkner, and Emcee
Lioness.
2/7/2019: VTDITC vol 13: Hip Hop & Interrogating
Civility. This event, in collaboration with the
Of ce of Student Conduct, took a critical view
of the imperative of civility on our campus. Dr.
Andrea Baldwin (VT Department of Sociology),
Yolanda Avent (VT Community and Cultural
Centers), VT student Juan Pachecho, and Dr. AD
Carson (UVA) served as panelists.
2/28/2019-3/2/2019: 3rd Annual VT Hip Hop
Appreciation Weekend took place. SOHHL, the
Flowmigos, and VTDITC again served as co-
sponsors.
2/28/2019: VTDITC vol 14: Gender & Hip Hop III –
the Return of the B-Girl. Graf ti artist Meme,
dancer BGirl Macca, and Emcee Lioness served
as panelists for this iteration of our seminar
series.
3/2/2019: 2nd Annual VTDITC Park Jam featured
muralists Good Homie Signs and Meme. Recap
video
4/7/2019: Black Cultural Center (BCC) Mixtape

released. This collaborative project – the
culmination of a semester and a half of work
largely done during VTDITC Studio Hours – was
formally released at a celebration at the BCC.
4/18/2019: Words of the Prophets: Graf ti as
Political Protest in Greece, Italy, and Poland.
This collaborative program with the VT
Department of English featured Dr. Jonathan
Gross (Professor of English at Purdue
University). He shared his research regarding
the rhetorics of graf ti art. Good Homie Signs
created a 4’ by 16’ mural prior to this event. It is
now on display in the Department of English’s
conference room (Shanks Hall 380).
4/18/2019: VTDITC vol 15: Show & Prove. This
event was an all elements open battle for local
hip hop arts practitioners. Members of the
Flowmigos won rst place.
8/2019: The VTDITC Leadership Board
established our inaugural Advisory Board. The
rst Advisory Board consisted of Juel Downing
(VT Class of ‘18 and original Leadership Board
member), Dr. J. Rawls (DJ/producer and
educator), Sum (MC), Emcee Lioness (VT Class
of ‘07 and MC), Dumi Right (VT Class of ‘95 and
MC), and Dr. Joycelyn Wilson (Assistant
Professor of Black Media Studies, Georgia Tech).
‘19-’20 Academic Year: Notably, the VTDITC
Community Engagement Fellows co-designed
and co-taught 45 media literacy workshops for
the broader community. Roughly a dozen
partner organizations helped facilitate these
workshops.
9/19/2019: VTDITC vol 16: Hip Hop & Race – What
Hasn’t Been Said. This event consisted of small
group discussions led by a team of moderators.
10/17/2019: VTDITC vol 17: Soul Sessions – Rebel

Voices. This iteration of our seminar series was a
collaboration with Roanoke-based open mic
series Soul Sessions and celebrated of LGBTQ+
History Month.
11/14/2019: VTDITC vol 18: 3rd Annual Beat Battle
& Music Production Workshop. This recurrence
of one of our most anticipated events was
judged and hosted by Stimulator Jones
(Roanoke based musician, DJ, and producer). VT
student and music producer Prince Predator
(VT Class of ‘21) won the battle.
February 2020: Bobcat Studios Project. VTDITC
was awarded a $3000 internal grant by VT’s
Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology to
create a recording studio and the culturally-
relevant curriculum necessary to support it at
Radford High School (Radford, Virginia).
2/20/2020: VTDITC vol 19: Intro to DJing and Fair
Use III. This workshop was taught by UCLA
Department of Africana Studies’ Lynnée Denise
and focused on their research regarding the DJ
as scholar.
2/28/2020: VTDITC held a master class with
legendary recording engineer Tim Donovan in
Media Design Studio B.
Mid March 2020: VTDITC Studio Hours
transitioned to a virtual-only format.
3/19/2020: VTDITC vol 20: Gender & Hip Hop IV’s
original date. We rescheduled this event to
10/15/2020 and transitioned to a virtual format
due to the COVID-19 pandemic
3/21/2020: 3rd Annual VDITC Park Jam’s original
date. We rescheduled this event to 9/19/2020
due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
6/4/2020: VTDITC vol 21: Black Communities &
the Police. This was our rst virtual-only
seminar series event and it transpired shortly

after George Floyd was murdered by the
Minneapolis Police Department. Community
stalwart Dr. Brandy Faulkner kindly shared her
expertise with us yet again.
Mid August 2020: VTDITC Studio Hours
reinstated in-person programming in MDS B.
9/17/2020: VTDITC vol 22: Hip Hop and Police
Brutality. Our second virtual only seminar series
event featured Dr. Brandy Faulkner, Dr.
Ellington Graves (VT Of ce for Inclusion and
Diversity and Department of Sociology/Africana
Studies Program), Roanoke-based recording
artist Macklyn, and Radford University
Department of Social Work’s Dr. Deneen Evans.
Panelists analyzed both current and classic hip
hop songs as foundational texts describing
instances of police violence.
9/19/2020: 3rd Annual VTDITC Park Jam – the
Do-Over. North Carolina based artist and
regular VTDITC collaborator Good Homie Signs
created a 4’ by 16’ mural of the Virginia Tech
motto Ut Prosim (or “That I May Serve”) outside
of Newman Library. The mural was installed in
Newman Library the following month.
10/15/2020: VTDITC vol 20 – the Do-Over:
Gender & Hip Hop IV featured Dr. Shante
Paradigm Smalls (St. John’s University). This
event was our third virtual-only seminar series
event. Dr. Smalls presentation focused on their
research regarding queer hip hop
historiographies.
11/12/2020: VTDITC vol 23: Hip Hop
Entrepreneurship II featured Stacy Epps
(Atlanta-based artist and attorney). At our
fourth virtual-only seminar series event, Stacy’s
workshop focused on the steps necessary for
aspiring artists to professionalize their creative

practices.
11/13-11/15/2020: Good Homie Signs created the
Bobcat Studios mural (12’ by 24’) at Radford
High School.
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HOME ABOUT ANNOUNCEMENTS AUTHORS ARCHIVES

CONDUCT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES SEARCH

2020 Craig Arthur, Freddy Paige, La' Portia

(Good Homie Signs’ “Hip Hop @ VT” mural 7/18)

VTDITC: Hip Hop Studies at Virginia Tech is an

Importantly, VTDITC builds on a 22 year history of

This article does not aim to chronicle the important

Hit the Crates & Create

Our Guiding Principles and Mission

principles still guides the program in the direction

Our mission statement was created shortly after

Hip Hop Studies at

study and publication

Another motivator that guides our programming is

contemporary oppression in educational spaces

The Origins of VTDITC

Along with the University Libraries, representatives

Center, the Gloria D. Smith Professorship in Black

The Six Elements of VTDITC: Hip Hop

1) The Seminar Series: VT’s Longest

Since that rst seminar in February 2017, we have

The seminars have addressed a wide range of

While including academic voices is important,

When attendees arrive at our seminars, they are

community interacts with the practitioners. When

(Some members of the VTDITC Leadership Board

A. Kwame Harrison (Professor, Department of

2) Do Things for the Kids: Media

Throughout the years, some of our more regular

Although the pandemic has put a temporary stop

students are encouraged to consider engineering

3) Cooking Up: Studio Hours

Numerous songs have been recorded in MDS B by

Students retain ownership of their work and are

VTDITC students have also performed live on

Each semester, a VTDITC community member –

the program’s momentum. There are relatively

(VTDITC Studio Etiquette guidelines – Fall 2019)

4) Learning by Doing: The VTDITC

Engagement Fellows program helped us achieve

Each fellow is classi ed as either a technical

working in hip hop arts-based or adjacent

5) Not So Formal Learning: The

We have partnered with the Department of

6) You Can’t Pay Your Bills with

As previously mentioned, the VTDITC program

One example of our practitioners for hire

(Good Homie Signs’ “Narrative Art”

(Good Homie Signs’ Ut Prosim [or “that I may

(Good Homie Signs’ Bobcat Studios mural

recording studio at Radford High School [Radford,

The Voice of the Community

which is nice to see

the discussions at our

“My favorite memories

Breaking down hierarchy is extremely important to

opportunities for faculty, staff, students, and non-

“VTDITC is more than a

Listening to others and valuing what they have to

Plans for the Future

Additionally, we also hope to further re ne our