COMM 368 Connecting to Career-Readiness Competencies

Using the NACE Career-Readiness Competencies, I reflected on what skills I developed throughout my work at the Tidewater Queer History Project internship.

Equity & Inclusion

At the beginning of my internship, I needed to know what direction Professor Rhodes wanted me to take the social media messaging in. Did we want the Instagram to be purely educational and informative, or did we want to take a political stance and advocate for queer rights and equality? We talked extensively about the potential for our social media presence and came to the conclusion that we should use our platform to speak up and be an advocate for the local queer community. Throughout every project, I aimed to infuse a message in my posts and videos – queer lives matter. The LGBTQ+ community seeks to provide a safe space for all those who are “different” from a cisheteronormative society. It should therefore celebrate people of all identities and cultural backgrounds. For Black History Month, we showcased Rev. Delores P. Berry, a founding member of The National Coalition of Black Lesbians & Gays and a Hampton Roads native. For HIV Is Not A Crime Awareness Day (February 28th), we shared a post to amplify the voices of those who have been criminalized based on their HIV status and to break down stigma around people with HIV and AIDS. And in every post, we sought to uplift queer people, reminding them of their history and giving them hope for a future in which we eliminate systemic inequity and bias.

Technology

At this internship, I experimented with a medium I had never tried before: video documentaries. I’d seen people on social media telling stories using TikTok’s green screen effect, allowing them to be shown on screen as they talked about an event, artifact, or figure from history, like @babatunde_hiphopera on Instagram. This seems to be a popular medium of sharing history on social media, making what might feel antique and faraway instead feel modern and relatable, so I thought it was appropriate to adopt it for TQHP’s archives. I wrote my own scripts, then found images or articles from Norfolk’s gay newspaper, Our Own, to support the narratives I crafted. Then I used TikTok to record myself reading those scripts, going from mere writer to actual storyteller. I believe this was the most effective medium to share Tidewater’s local queer history, as unfortunately, many people do not read anymore, and prefer to get information through visual/oral mediums such as Instagram Reels and TikToks. I am satisfied with what I’ve created, and a part of it, I must admit, was selfish – by putting my own face and voice in these videos, I’ve cemented my place (small as it may be) in our local queer history.

Teamwork

Though I shared an office space with two other grad students, I mostly worked in isolation. I managed my own time and came up with my own tasks, then shared my work with my supervisor Cathleen Rhodes for her review and approval. However, I did have the chance to work with the two other interns on a couple of projects. Our Archiving Intern, Kenny Wilcox, worked on producing a timeline to compare local and national queer history, putting in context how one affected the other. Our Podcast Production Intern, Izzy Ozeki, worked on Out in the South, TQHP’s podcast about southern queer history. I knew I wanted to feature their work on our social media to inform our audience and increase interest in their projects. About ¾ of the way through the semester, I reached out to them to ask if they had any work they were willing and ready to share publicly. Kenny showed me some of the historical profiles he’d been working on, and Izzy shared a preview of Out in the South they’d recorded. Both told me they weren’t very familiar with social media or how it worked, so I could do whatever I wanted with their projects. For Kenny, I created a set of Instagram posts that were connected by an actual timeline running through them, and I added some of the text in the profiles he’d written/edited. For Izzy, I made an Instagram reel using the audio they’d recorded for the podcast so their presence and their voice would be heard on the platform. They were very pleased with what I’d produced and how they were represented. By the end of the internship, I feel happy knowing I got to amplify their voices, and that in having them participate in a Meet the Team reel with me and Director Cathleen Rhodes, we could all be the face of TQHP.

Conclusion

The three competencies I developed – Equity & Inclusion, Technology, and Teamwork – will help me continue along my path in marketing and outreach. Marketing doesn’t just have to be advertisements for brand products and merchandise. It can be raising awareness for a non-profit organization, sharing knowledge with the community, and encouraging behavioral change for social issues. I will use my adaptability in technology to learn new mediums of storytelling and communication. Those mediums will give me the ability to advocate for a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world, as is my passion. Yet I cannot do everything alone – no man is an island. Teamwork will give me the power and support to achieve my goals. Building community is integral to making the world a better place. It cannot serve only a few. It must be fair and compassionate to all people. That is my mission.