TROSA Residents and Duke University Students Collaborate on Comics Sharing Life Experiences
TROSA residents and Duke University students collaborated together on a special project for Graphic Ethnography: Comics as Research, a Duke service-learning course taught by Professor Adam R. Rosenblatt. The course explores comics as both an innovative research method and a medium for authentic human connection.
The collaboration started in January of this year with Prof. Rosenblatt’s class proposing to work with TROSA senior residents to turn their stories into comics form. The students visited TROSA’s campus and interviewed participating TROSA residents to learn about their life experiences.
We celebrated this creative collaboration with a reception on TROSA’s campus, where the comics were revealed and the residents and students had a chance to share their work.
Visual Storytelling
Duke Service Learning’s Ruth Eckles attended the reception and wrote about the collaboration. You can see excerpts from the student-resident collaborations and read the entire article here.
Ruth writes:
Students and residents co-created comics based on personal recovery stories. From battling addiction through video-game metaphors to transforming into butterflies, the comics reveal hard-won journeys of strength, hope, and healing.
These powerful collaborations didn’t just teach students how to conduct research—they taught them how to listen, connect, and draw with care.
Each student pairs with a TROSA resident to co-create a visual narrative based on interviews, often incorporating symbolism chosen by the resident. Carol Ann, partnered with student Federico, specifically requested to be depicted as a bald eagle.
For her, the eagle symbolizes more than recovery, it’s a powerful visual metaphor for her journey toward freedom and strength:
“Eagles are strong, resilient, and pure in spirit. They’re leaders, visionaries, and they overcome — that’s how I see myself now’”
