More Than A Single Story: UM-Dearborn Speaks is a digital storytelling project launched in fall 2021 that gives students the media skills and reflective practice to explore their identities, purposes, and agency through self-authored multimedia stories. The project is rooted in a specific context: UM-Dearborn serves a large population of commuter students, many of whom work 20 to 40 hours per week outside the university. In recognition of that reality, the program is structured as a paid internship, weaving professional development and career training directly into the storytelling experience rather than asking students to participate on top of already demanding schedules.

Throughout the program, students draft and refine their stories, give and receive constructive peer feedback, and work toward a public showcase premiering their work. The stories themselves push back against narrow narratives about Dearborn, the Detroit Metropolitan area, regional commuter campuses, and the surrounding Muslim-American community, giving students a platform to define their own identities on their own terms. Graduates return as mentors for the next cohort and are encouraged to serve as digital ambassadors in their communities beyond campus. The results bear out the model: participants reported a 38.5% increase in confidence in story presentation skills, and by the end of the program, every student agreed that personal narrative shapes the identity of UM-Dearborn and that storytelling is a powerful means of connecting with others.