Triumph over trauma

Students in Molly Keane-Sexton’s business writing course filed into the classroom in the Humanities Center one sunny Tuesday morning last fall and sat down. Keane-Sexton, English lecturer at the University of Dayton, had invited a guest speaker that day, Dayton resident Dion Green — a speaker they’ll likely never forget.

Green is a survivor of the 2019 mass shooting in downtown Dayton. He held his father, Derrick Fudge, as he lay dying on the sidewalk of Fifth Street. He had been shot five times.

“… [I] just kept telling him I loved him before he died,” Green said.

Most of the students had never met anyone who had experienced a mass shooting or lost a loved one to gun violence. But after hearing Green speak about his experience, they wanted to know more about how they could help spread his message.

Green founded the Flourishing Under Distress Given Encouragement Foundation in 2020. The FUDGE Foundation helps people impacted by mass shootings, gun violence and other trauma.

Green built a 12-week curriculum on trauma and grief recovery for Ohio social workers to help gun violence survivors. But he needed help getting it online and into the right hands, Keane-Sexton said.

“I work in my business and professional writing course (English 372) with nonprofits, if you ever wanted to partner,” she told Green.

She suggested her students help him use their skills as writers to aid in his mission; they jumped at the chance. Using Google Slides, infographics and business writing tools, the students created 14 online modules on trauma and grief for the foundation. Each module covered a different facet of understanding trauma, dealing with grief and moving forward.

“The students got a ton out of it — they learned a lot about grief and trauma,” Keane-Sexton said.

Business major Thomas Skiba wrote a grant proposal for the FUDGE Foundation to support families for the first month after a tragedy, and to pay for funeral expenses and necessities.

Skiba, a junior, said he appreciated being able to work on something that will have a real impact in the community.

“The work my class did may have been insignificant from a student perspective because we have never suffered those problems, but [the work] could have a major impact on somebody we’ve never met."

“The work my class did may have been insignificant from a student perspective because we have never suffered those problems, but [the work] could have a major impact on somebody we’ve never met,” he said.

Keane-Sexton hopes to continue a partnership with the FUDGE Foundation to enable healing in the community. She earned a grant to bring the Seeds of Life mosaic to campus in March. The mosaic, created to remember the nine victims of the Dayton shooting, will be installed in the Oregon District.

“UD community members were invited to place tiles and mosaic pieces to represent us all starting to heal,” Keane-Sexton said.

Students in two of her classes this semester are helping Green plan a memorial event marking the tragedy’s fifth anniversary Aug. 2. The students are planning to attend the event together as a class.

Experiencing experiential

Through Experiential Learning Innovative Faculty Fund grants, students in Keane-Sexton’s course have connected with community partners through writing.

Crossover Community Development Center 

University of Dayton students worked with Crossover Community Development Center in Dayton and its executive director, Catherine Bitwayiki, to help local refugees with essential services like English classes, employment aid, legal assistance and health care access. Nearly 900 refugees have relocated to Dayton since 2013, more than 40% coming from the Congo.

Students created infographics that were translated into several languages to help people new to the U.S. settling in the Miami Valley find these services. Several students from the class helped tutor refugees in both English and mathematics over Zoom. 

Dayton History

Dayton History’s motto, “You can’t go a day without Dayton,” is easily explained after spending time at the 65-acre, open-air museum at Carillon Historical Park. Keane-Sexton’s students explored the park last year and prepared a final project on a business with roots in the Dayton area. UD students studied how the city became “first in flight” thanks to its hometown natives, the Wright brothers.

Final projects included videos, podcasts and reports on National Cash Register, IBM, Huffy, Mead, Iams and General Motors, showcasing the crucial role the Gem City played in innovation and business development in American and global history.