On May 13, 2025, members of the University of Rochester community gathered at the Staybridge Suites for the first Building Resilient Relationships Summit, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the University’s Center for Community Engagement. The summit welcomed more than 80 attendees from the campus and the Greater Rochester area, creating space to reflect on trust, shared purpose, and the evolving role of partnerships in academic and civic life.
For the River Campus Libraries’ Digital Scholarship team, the event offered a welcome opportunity to spotlight a project that exemplifies what engaged scholarship can look like in practice. Featured on one of the summit’s panels was YoUR Nature Walk—a collaborative initiative developed by Digital Scholarship specialists Blair Tinker and Vini Romualdo, in partnership with Professor Stella Wang (Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program) and Professor Ophelia Adams (Mathematics).
Reimagining Campus Through Story
Originally developed through the writing courses WRT105 and WRT263, YoUR Nature Walk integrates ArcGIS StoryMaps, spatial thinking, and digital storytelling into undergraduate learning. More than a class assignment, the project reimagines the River Campus as a place rich with natural, cultural, personal, and historical meaning. The result is two self-guided walking trails—the Genesee River Walk and the Witmer House Walk—that invite the campus and broader community to explore, reflect, and connect with these layered stories.
From Project to Panel: Community Reflections
At the summit panel, Professors Wang, Adams and Laura Whitebell (Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program), along with Tinker and Romualdo, shared how YoUR Nature Walk grew from a shared pedagogical idea into a multi-semester collaboration. They spoke not only about the technical tools used but also about the values the project fostered: curiosity, humility, and belonging.
The team showed how the project brings together spatial thinking, Indigenous cultural awareness, and multimodal storytelling to create a reflective and immersive student experience, both inside and outside the classroom.
For those present at the summit, YoUR Nature Walk served as more than a case study—it was a call to action. A reminder that digital tools can do more than capture information; they can cultivate empathy, surface invisible histories, and nurture meaningful relationships across disciplines and divides.
A Walk Worth Celebrating
Just a few weeks earlier, on Earth Day (April 22, 2025), the project was publicly celebrated with a launch event in the Welles-Brown Room of Rush Rhees Library. Attendees enjoyed Indigenous-inspired refreshments—white corn and piñon cookies, sweetgrass and lemon balm tea.
The walk’s story map now lives online, inviting anyone—students, faculty, alumni, visitors—to explore the campus in new ways. At stops along the path, users can read about native plant species, climate resilience, and the university’s relationship to Indigenous land and knowledge.
Looking Ahead: Collaboration as a Compass
Future iterations of YoUR Nature Walk may expand beyond River Campus, but its heart remains the same: to help participants develop a sense of place, community, and purpose through reflection and shared knowledge.
Professor Laura Whitebell will continue the stewardship and development of the project with the same deep commitment to student collaboration and community voice envisioned by Professor Wang.
Explore the Walk
Experience the walk for yourself at: https://yournaturewalk.org
