Digging in the Crates: Hip Hop Studies at Virginia Tech, aka #VTDITC, is a new series of programming at Virginia Tech that exists to foster a sense of community among hip hop artists and fans across the campus, local and global community. We successfully link students’ personal interests to their academic studies and help further institutionalize Hip Hop Studies’ presence on Virginia Tech’s campus.

Digging in the Crates embodies our mission of community creation, building, and learning through all of our events on campus, making our programming model innovative, transdisciplinary, and unique to the Virginia Tech community. Our monthly events celebrate Hip hop scholarship via community creation, and through weekly open studio hours we offer a space for our community to compose in small groups. In addition, we co-create and present relevant programming with several campus partners.

Digging in the Crates’ mission of fostering community is also served through the co-sponsorship and co-creation model of planning, coordinating, and presenting programming with campus and community partners, a model that allows for creative as well as financial partnering. The Leadership Board of #VTDITC consists of faculty, staff, and students from departments and divisions across the university, providing for a large network of potential partners and attendees for our programming. We have found that this overall model provides fertile ground for the work of collaboration, conversation, and creation to take root.

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