Capstone class’ crosswalk created

BY PAYTON MANUEL @payton_manuel04

A new crosswalk with a creative twist has been painted on LSU’s campus to improve pedestrian safety for students.

LSU professor Robert Mann and his political communication students have worked on a collaborative project across two semesters called Tigercross. Tigercross is a student-run project that aims to increase public safety regarding crosswalks on LSU’s campus.

They have made history by making the first, and only, “creative crosswalk” at LSU.

Mann teaches a capstone course within the Manship School’s political communication concentration that challenges students to find an LSU-related issue, then address and solve it within one semester.

“I’ve been teaching this class for 18 years, and every semester I have groups of students who take on some activism and try to find something they want to change on this campus for this community,” Mann said. “It’s really rare that what they set out to do actually happens.”

Mann expressed that the project came close to not being completed with how busy the spring semester can be, but his students were able to overcome it.

“I’m usually telling students at the end of the semester, ‘Well you can learn a lot through not achieving your goals, you learn a lot through failure, you learn a lot through hardship and having people tell you no,’ and that’s a lot of my mantra,” Mann said.