Students in the Three-Dimensional Concepts first-year art course partnered with a local non-profit, the Waterloo Writing Project (WWP), to create short films based on the writings of the k-12 WWP participants. The mutual goals for the instructor and WWP included giving voice to area youth and connecting college students to the community. All participants explored and reflected upon the importance of community engagement and citizenship by acknowledging their similarities and differences through creative lenses.

Participants from both groups generated ideas through shared journal exercises that the youth writers then used as inspiration for their written works. University art students created short, stop-motion films based on the writers' works using the library’s Digital Media Hub. A faculty-coordinated hip-hop literacy group made up of area youth created the soundtrack for one of the films, providing another level of campus-community collaboration.

A final film screening event was held at the Waterloo Center for the Arts on December 4, 2016, as well as presentations by the students in the Rod Library ScholarSpace for the UNI community on December 8, 2016.