Video Transcripts:

Writing for Social Change: With Dr. Kim Critchlow

Visual: Video opens to the opening title with the video series title, Faculty Voices: Walden Talks Writing, then the title, “How have you experienced the connection between writing and social change? with Dr. Kim Critchlow.”

Visual: The screen changes to show each speaker talking to the camera in their home offices. Each person’s name and college is listed as they speak.

Audio:

Dr. Kim Critchlow, College of Management and Technology: Writing and social change in my opinion are very connected. When we write, we're writing about something. Something that exists or something that we'd like to exist. And I'm just going to just step up on the edge here and say even in fiction there's an element of social change. But now I'm going to back off and we're going to talk about, like, doc studies or, like, journal articles or, like, white papers in the business area or, like, proposals. We write because we're looking to make positive social change, one way or another. And, and so therein lies a very slim difference between the social change for academics or academia and social in the business arena, however, we're writing to bring about change or to expose or to speak about something positive that we'd like to see take place.

I'll give you an example. So, and this is a personal example, so I moved to a new area. Once I moved across the country, and I started working in in a new city, and one of the things I did was, I was invited to become a writer to share something having to do with education, an element thereof, in a newspaper. And so I would present on a, on a monthly basis articles on time management. And it became very well-read. And then I would also host seminars to—and invite the community to come to my seminars on, on time management, and they were well attended. The feedback that I received from that was very, very positive, and the organization, the employers would share that they saw a difference. The employees themselves were sharing that it made a big difference in not just their work but in their personal life as well. And they were receiving feedback from some of their peers, some of their church members on the difference that they had witnessed and their own behaviors by reading more and learning more about time management, what it is and what it is not, and how to incorporate it into your life. That's positive social change, and that was starting with writing. Writing an article about an element. An element that is widely used, both personally, in your personal life, as well as in your professional life. That's positive social change.

Visual: The video ends with the closing title with the video series title, Faculty Voices: Walden Talks Writing and the Writing Center’s e-mail address: writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu.