Writing for Social Change: With Dr. Gregory Campbell

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. Gregory Campbell.”

 

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. Gregory Campbell, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences: So, first of all, I believe in social change. I consider myself a world changer, and what that means to me is changing the world one individual at a time. So let me explain what that means. So I've had many projects, current projects and past projects, that, that have had social change implications. One of them is one of the books that I'm a co-author in, which is Breakthrough Mentoring in the 21st Century, written by Dr. Walter McCollum, in which I'm a co-author. So as a doctoral student, Dr. Walter McCollum was my chair, and I said Dr. McCollum you are helping many students, why don't you capture working with students, how the dissertation, the mentoring process he had established, how he has helped students be successful in that process, and have us write about that in a chapter. Why don't he create a list of questions, and we as students answer those questions, and that becomes a chapter in the book. And then Dr. Walter McCollum loved the idea, and he followed that model, and now he is readying numerous books with students, including our first book, Breakthrough Mentoring in the 21st Century.

I have also employed that process myself. I currently mentor inner-city student athletes, and I have athletes now that I have mentored that are at Yale, Central Arkansas, Florida International, and universities throughout the United States. One of the things that I've done with those young student athletes is that we've written a book that hopefully I will have done this summer. That book is called The Peak. I use the same model that Dr. McCollum, that I recommended to Dr. Walter McCollum, which is to provide your mentees a list of questions. They answer the questions. That become a chapter in the book, and now my high school seniors, 10 high school seniors that I mentored, are now authors in a book that will be published this, this summer called The Peak.

 

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.