Under the guidance of Herron professors, students pair up with a community partner to create art and design with a specific role to play in the world beyond Herron, often framed as a solution to a communications challenge or a way of building awareness within a community. Community partners seek our students’ abilities, the Basile Center matches the project with specific students and faculty, and the work begins.

A recent example of both Herron’s civic engagement and professional practice in action is the project at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis. Director of Wishard Pharmacy Services Jim Fuller collaborated with Assistant Professor of Painting and Printmaking Andrew Winship, inviting his students to visit Wishard and learn about the hospital's role in the community. After their tour, the students created works that reflect their feelings about the hospital. The paintings were displayed in Works of Hope and Healing, an exhibition at Wishard during National Pharmacy Week in 2007 Wishard employees cast their vote for their favorite artwork. The winner would receive the Wishard Foundation's Purchase Prize Award of $1,000.

The community of Wishard was so impressed with the students and their work that with Director Fuller's guidance, Wishard was able to offer a second $1,000 award (Director's Choice Award) at the time of the exhibition opening! Heather Shebeck received the Wishard Foundation Purchase Prize Award, and Julie Cifuentes received the Director's Choice Award. The winners' paintings are hanging permanently in the Wishard Pharmacy.

Both Herron and Wishard feel this collaboration was a significant and welcomed exchange, connecting Wishard’s mission to serve the community and contemporary Indiana artists.

Heather Shebeck describes her painting Open as a depiction of Wishard's commitment to personal care for every patient that enters the hospital. It symbolizes the special connection that exists between patients and the hospital staff.

Julie Cifuentes says her painting At The Heart of A City is an aerial view where the network of Wishard healthcare centers become a metaphor for the physical mapping of the body, and of health. The complexities and interconnectedness of the land and the city are synonymous with the individual and collective health of a community; rivers become veins, the land becomes the body, and a common life connects them all.

Also purchased and donated to the Wishard Pediatrics Ward was Lindsay Liosi's painting Wish.