"Creative Video," a course offered through the film studies department as part of a national project that examines the issue of diversity on campus through documentaries, met for the first time yesterday.
A program known as "--ism(n.)" is sponsoring classes like "Creative Video" at 12 colleges across the country, including Dartmouth, through funding by the Ford Foundation.
All of the --ism(n.) courses will involve students making both individual videos and group videos that explore the effects of diversity on their lives according to a brochure published by --ism(n.).
Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Mary Childers, one of the course's three instructors, said Creative Video will focus on technical aspects of the documentary process.
Assistant Director of Media Productions Michael Murray and co-Director of Consultation and Multicultural Services Sandra Spiegel will also teach this team-taught course.
Childers said she was pleased with the turnout for the first day of class.
"A very good group of students showed up ... with a variety of interests," she said. "I think we have a terrific mix -- it's a diverse group of students."
The class uses filmmaking as a medium through which students can explore issues surrounding diversity.
"It's a film studies class," Murray said, "it has been molded to incorporate this theme of looking at using documentary film making as a way to get students to talk about issues of diversity."
Childers stressed the importance of the group video assignments to the diversity objectives of the project.
"You have one kind of experience doing a video about yourself," Childers said, "and another kind if you're working in a group."
She said communication is important when working with diverse groups.
"Not enough students," she said, "are encouraged to know how to work with other people."
The --ism(n.) project will compile video materials produced by students in all of the classes for a national broadcast in October.
Some of the project's goals are to "help students become more reflective about their attitudes toward diversity" and to promote "constructive public dialogue on diversity issues ... in this time of heightened tension on college campuses," according to the brochure.
Childers said, "The primary goal is that people learn how to make videos ... it's a production class."
But not all the colleges involved will focus on production, Murray said.
"At some schools the course is not in a film studies or media production department," Murray said. "Each school has sort of figured out a way to make it fit into the existing curriculum."
Erica Rivinoja '99 said she was attracted to the course because of its emphasis on production. "I'm really excited to take my first production course," Rivinoja, a future film studies major, said.
The focus of the videos also interested Rivinoja.
"I'm fascinated by all the diversity issues," she said.
Murray said he became involved with "Creative Video" through Michael Hanitchak, who "was involved early on in this project."
Hanitchak was the original film studies instructor for the course, Murray said, but "in the interim he became the director of the Native American Program and was unable to do the instruction part of this course."
Murray said Hanitchak asked him to take over the class.
