Connecting Our Community

With an 87-acre campus, 16 buildings and 2,400 students in a historic campus in downtown Indianapolis, it is easy for students and visitors alike to literally and figuratively be lost in the crowd.

For nearly 100 years, Arsenal Technical High School has been the heart of the Near-East Side of Indianapolis. Currently the school has six academies: Academy of Creative Expression, Career Technology, Math/Science and Health Professions, International Academy, Early College Academy and New Tech.

These academies are nearly all located in separate buildings and there is minimal interaction between students in different academies. Technology access varies.

All-school programs include athletics, music and journalism.
The journalism program is undergoing a revival with a newspaper and yearbook. Broadcasting and web are being added.

Cannon student publications are becoming a way students connect with each other and the surrounding community and we are hoping to expand that in the next two years as we approach the 100th anniversary of the school in 2012. With Indianapolis the host city for Super Bowl 2012, Arsenal Tech will be the site of the NFL Youth Education Town -- or YET center. The facility will be housed at the southeast corner of the Arsenal Tech football field. The new facility will house sports leagues, science, math, and technology programs, as well as arts interests and it will be open to the community to use after hours, weekends and summers. Planners and neighbors hope the new center spurs Near East Side revitalization.

Tech is poised to be the centerpiece of the Near East Side but not many community members and parents know the students, their accomplishments and their daily lives.
Our plan is to chronicle the progress of the Legacy project through the construction projects and the eyes of community members.

The journalism program at Arsenal Tech will be developed into a multimedia format, adding a web component with video uploads to the newspaper and yearbook. The majority of students have access to the web and social networking sites such as Facebook and use the Internet for research, shopping and entertainment.

The multimedia format would incorporate journalistic principles and encourage responsibility and give more students a chance to develop their reading, writing, critical thinking, photography, design and illustrating skills but also extend the opportunity for consumers of the media, not just the creators.

With the addition of four iMac computers, flip cameras, digital video cameras and digital editing software, students could become “backpack journalists” and bring a personal view of life on campus with blogs, video segments that could be uploaded to the web and broadcasting packages on school programs to be aired on local TV cable networks.

Students in this project will have the opportunity to work with the local community center to chronicle the impact and history of the Legacy project to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood. Special community features, especially regarding the Legacy project intended to revitalize the Near East Side of Indianapolis as a part of the 2012 Super Bowl, would be chronicled in the Cannon and on the website over the next two years.

Studetnt journalists would conduct alumni interviews on the impact their education at Arsenal Tech had on their lives as well as their memories for special centennial coverage. Parents would also be connected to what is happening with the children’s education and also to what is happening in their neighborhood as well.