Senior Honors Convergence: Converging to Raise Awareness of Wealth Inequality in America

Eleven years ago, the senior capstone for communication majors was created at Cabrini College.

Senior honors convergence is a year-long course facilitated by professor Cathy Yungmann that requires students to apply the skills they have learned in all four years — video, journalism, social media marketing and so on. Combining these skills and assets, students create a well developed, visually pleasing and user-friendly website to raise questions about social justice issues that people may not be thinking about.

Well before senior year, students collaborated and chose a topic that they would study throughout the fall and spring semester.

The topic that was chosen was wealth inequality in America. This topic was admittedly difficult to both understand and interpret due to its vast global prominence. The issue of wealth inequality not only affects every community in America, but every single community in the world.

Reflecting upon the purpose found in this project, Mackenzie Harris, senior communication major and content strategist, said, “We wanted to walk away from the site knowing that the quality is there, knowing that the content is there, and being able to be proud of something that we have our names on. I wanted it to be bigger than what it is.”

“I wanted it to be bigger than a site, I wanted people, professors and teachers to be able to use this to talk about the wage gap, to talk about the wealth gap, to talk about the disparity between the rich and the poor and I wanted it to be a stepping stone for other people to build on, especially young Americans,” Harris said. “More than that, I wanted to encourage people to be socially responsible and move forward.”

This capstone has proven to be groundbreaking; it has initiated collegiate ties along with international ties, connecting Cabrini to the outside world of social justice.

Students established connections throughout the United States and many traveled to Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City for interviews. Other students conducted interviews across the midwest using platforms such as Skype.

This program has blossomed countless award winning websites, portfolios, writing pieces and even career paths.

“What I was not expecting about this project is that I really learned something,”  Joey Rettino, senior communications major and project manager said. “I realized that I want to continue working in this area, and it’s what I will be doing after graduation.”

“I’ll be working with journalist Wendell Potter who was a source that I interviewed for this project,” Rettino said. “He recently wrote a book on campaign financing within the United States and the corruption of money, which is really the crux of wealth inequality in America.”

Working on this senior capstone has paved the way to promising career paths and connections, for not only Rettino, but many other Cabrini graduates.

On Friday, April 22, senior honors convergence students will be unveiling the completed website at the Society for Collegiate Journalists’ induction ceremony.

For more information, visit www.Americanwealthinequality.com.