A Mercer University professor took service-learning to a new level when her students created Traffick Jam, a social brand founded to address adolescent sex trafficking.
Up until then, Dr. Tammy Crutchfield’s marketing students would take on projects for clients in the community. And while working with those clients was beneficial, it had its drawbacks.
“When we built our own brand, we were able to do things that we were not able to do when we tried to help an external client because of their budget limitations, their time limitations, their missional limitations,” said Dr. Crutchfield, professor of marketing in the School of Business.
With Traffick Jam, each year, students can see the impact they have on their own brand.
“They get to practice their skills, build experiences and stories that they can communicate to future employers or future professional or graduate schools, and then they are also learning,” she said. “That learning by doing is really how you ultimately learn.”
Today, Dr. Crutchfield is a passionate advocate of service-learning. In addition to Traffick Jam, she played a pivotal role in the creation of IMWE, a nonprofit brand founded through a collaboration between Mercer, MindLeaps, and Rwandan women who survived the 1994 genocide.
Service-learning “aligns with my values, my lifestyle, and it also aligns with Mercer’s core values. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, and I’ve learned that it also provides a rich learning laboratory for students.”
Through service-learning, students learn leadership skills, teamwork, responsibility, and crisis and conflict management skills, just to name a few, she said.
Dr. Crutchfield earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing from Georgia College (now Georgia College & State University). In college, she loved being a student and looked up to her professors. They inspired her to become one.
After graduating, she worked as a budget analyst and production manager at Robins Air Force Base while she pursued her Master of Business Administration at Georgia College and then her Ph.D. in marketing at the University of Alabama.
“I was kind of out of my field for a few years, and I would say it helped me to appreciate what I do love and recognize that there’s a lot of joy in being in your vocation, in your calling. Because there was a period of time when I was not in my calling. I just had a job,” she said. “I always tell my students now, ‘I had a job. You’ll probably have a job. But it’s a lot better if you have a calling. Life is a lot more joyful if you do what you love.’”
Dr. Crutchfield joined Mercer in 1998. She was among the first to be mentored by former Vice Provost for Service-Learning Dr. Mary Alice Morgan and to adopt and promote service-learning as a teaching method.
Traffick Jam was established during the 2014-2015 academic year after Dr. Crutchfield tasked her students with marketing “Chosen,” an anti-trafficking educational video produced by Shared Hope International. Students’ research found that while videos like “Chosen” were necessary, they were not sufficient to create lasting change.
The students asked if they could create their own brand to continue the work, and Dr. Crutchfield supported them. The result was Traffick Jam, a self-sustaining social brand, that educates high school students about sex trafficking. Mercer students are responsible for all the marketing, fundraising and operational needs of the brand.
Traffick Jam’s curriculum is now offered in all Bibb County high schools and has educated more than 10,000 high school students since it began. And over 1,000 students from across the University have participated in the service-learning course associated with Traffick Jam.
A few years ago, School of Business Dean Dr. Julie Petherbridge told Dr. Crutchfield about the Mercer On Mission trip to Rwanda that she had just returned from. She had brought back several bags made by a group of Rwandan women who survived the genocide.
They started brainstorming and decided to create a class around building a brand and marketing the bags to help empower the women and support their economic independence. The result was IMWE, which means “One” in the Kinyarwanda language. Dr. Crutchfield led a yearlong class that helped launch the initiative and traveled twice to Rwanda in support of the project.
Dr. Vicki Eveland, professor of marketing, now teaches the IMWE class, and Dr. Crutchfield remains a supporter of the initiative.
Dr. Crutchfield’s work in the classroom and community has earned her accolades including the Vulcan Innovations in Teaching Award from Mercer and Gulf South Summit’s Outstanding Faculty Contributions to Service-Learning Instruction in Higher Education award.
“I’ve never thought of myself as a woman leader,” she said. “I just think of myself as someone with a passion and a calling toward making a positive impact on the world.”
