Toulan Stories: Dr. Kacy McKinney

For me, the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning is all about the students. I feel so profoundly fortunate that the students drawn to our programs and to my classes have a focus on creating a more just world. I am excited to have first-generation college students in my classes. I struggled to feel like I belonged in college and graduate school, so I like that students who are wrestling with that feeling connect with me. I work to help them feel they belong here and bring valuable knowledge and experience to the classroom. I feel a strong sense of responsibility for supporting students as they navigate this system. Some of my students are queer, and that’s critical to me because I did not have role models who were queer—not until my PhD program and, even then, only a few. While building our group agreement and shared expectations during the first week of class this term, students said they want an instructor who is enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and cares deeply about student success—I think that’s me in a nutshell.

At the Toulan School, I get to work at the intersection of the arts, critical theory, community development, and community-engaged research and service, which is the perfect fit for me. I love that in my courses I get to focus on theory, philosophy, research methods, organizing, engagement, equity, creativity, and a wide range of themes related to urban studies. But underlying all of that is how I get to help strengthen students’ confidence and ability to ask challenging, critical questions, look for context, learn to map power, and not accept easy answers or a single viewpoint on an issue.

Another way I have tapped into the joy students bring is by seeking funding for and hiring research assistants and interns. I’m benefiting from training students and inviting them to weigh in equally on how I’m running a project, doing research, or designing something. Right now, I have a Community Development student and an Art and Social Practice graduate student working on an impact assessment of a community-engaged research project. Another Community Development student is supporting program development in PSU’s Comics Studies program, together with two of my colleagues, Susan Kirtley, in the Department of English, who is also the director of the Comics Studies program, and J.J. Vazquez from the PSU School of Film. In this latter project, we have engaged students, faculty, community members, and industry partners to develop a vision for the future of comics studies at PSU. I am hopeful it will be possible for us, as colleagues across three units, to build something truly interdisciplinary and responsive to the needs and desires of students, faculty, community, and industry partners. I’m grateful for this creative, collaborative work that will enhance the Toulan School and other units across campus.

At the Toulan School, I get to work at the intersection of the arts, critical theory, community development, and community-engaged research and service...

For me, arts and academics are inextricably connected. People are excited about comics, and I am too. Research into Comics is a course that developed out of my research, as well as out of Kelly Clifton’s research—which is precisely what I think we would hope for when thinking about the intersection of teaching and research in academia. My interests in teaching comics are communicating research to the largest audience possible, building empathy, and telling engaging and beautiful stories from multiple perspectives. Comics do all of this. Research into Comics combines my work with that of cartoonist Ryan Alexander-Tanner. In the course, students use this medium to think critically about research, what it does, and how to communicate it and make it meaningful. It is so exciting to see students with no background in drawing successfully creating amazing projects, further demonstrating the accessible nature of comics.

Changing the Narrative is my first comprehensive study in which the methodological approach of collaborative comics is infused throughout. The project was funded by a faculty award from the Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative. The project uses cartooning to research and communicate the stories of PSU students who have lived experience of homelessness or housing instability. We centered the stories of individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and Asian American and Pacific Islanders; people with disabilities; and individuals who are LGBTQAI+. The collaboration, creativity, commitment, and skill of the ten professional artists we brought on were crucial to the success of the project. We partnered with Daren Todd and the Downstairs Gallery, Independent Publishing Resource Center, and Street Roots. Street Roots vendors distributed 6,000 copies of the comics developed in the project. (The first 4,000 sold within ten days.) The sales generated thousands of dollars in income for the vendors. Faculty at seven universities across the United States have used the Changing the Narrative comics in their classes. I am currently working to raise funds to create ten more comics and collect them all into a book.

Right now, the class I’m most excited about is Community and the Built Environment. The course fits precisely at the intersection of my work as a critical feminist geographer, an artist, and an urban studies and community development scholar. The course is about power and the social production of space. It’s about the shifting meanings of and access to public spaces, such as libraries, parks, benches, and sidewalks. It examines who belongs and who gets to decide and whose needs are sidelined or centered in design processes. We compare universal design with inclusive design and design justice and dive into creating placemaking projects inspired by the disability justice movement.

I’m developing a new course for spring term called Arts and Community Change. All too often, the arts are treated as an add-on or an afterthought, which is also to say the power of the arts continues to be underestimated and undervalued within academia, even within the social sciences. If there’s a form data can take that meaningfully invites the reader in, it’s comics and art. In many cases, I believe art tells stories in ways that are more impactful. And yet, in the academic tradition, certain kinds of data and knowledge are valued over others. I’m excited to be an educator and a creator in a moment where many more academics view art as necessary, as essential.