Check out SOC's latest video, produced by Video Production Coordinator Grace Ibrahim, showcasing the Anacostia Youth Media Festival. The festival is a collaboration, led by Professor Brigid Maher, between American University faculty and students, Anacostia community leaders, and youth from D.C. Wards 7 and 8.
The inaugural Anacostia Youth Media Festival was a success and plans are underway for next year: Brigid Maher received a $10,000 Humanities Truck grant for her continued work on this project. The Run, Hope Work: Youth Media Collaboration will produce short social media stories as well as a single short format documentary on the Run, Hope Work program this Fall. THis program focuses on vocational training for at-risk youth. The Run, Hope, Work Collaboration will be a project-based learning initiative that will train teenage youth in D.C. Wards 7 and 8 to make thoughtful documentaries on peers within their communities. American University film student’s will work with Professor Maher and Community Leads to teach the youth technical skills and guide them through creating a longitudinal-based documentary.
Aram Sinnreich also received a new grant from the Humanities Truck Foundation that builds on the work he did for them in 2021-22, with a new focus on carceral justice. Here’s the synopsis: Out of Our Cells is a yearlong project that will connect incarcerated composers in the D.C. jail system with recording artists in the DMV area and produce a compilation of songs combining the talents of these two interconnected communities. The project will also collect oral histories and the self-reported experiences of both incarcerated composers and the musicians who collaborate with them, in order to map the complex web of interdependencies in the DMV-area musical community and to chart the consequences of the carceral system for creative expression and local communities. Using the Humanities Truck as a mobile recording studio, Professor Sinnreich, his community partners, and his students at SOC will work in conjunction with the Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative, which provides education for incarcerated students in the D.C. jail system.
Kurt Braddock was quoted by the Associated Press on the rising threat of violence in the leadup to the 2024 election.
Pallavi Kumar shared teaching advice along with other 2023 Teaching Award recipients in CTRL’s Fall edition of "The Beat." Here’s Pallavi’s entry:
Pallavi Kumar—Teach Every Semester Like the FirstOutstanding Teaching in a Full-Time, Term-Line Appointment Award
“View the materials through the lens of who is in your class that semester.”
I am so grateful and humbled by this honor. I have been teaching at American University for 21 years — first as an adjunct beginning in 2002, then as a full-time faculty member in 2009 and then serving as division director from 2012 to 2020.
In my first multiyear request in 2011, I wrote this: “Teaching full-time at American University has been the ultimate fulfillment of my professional goals.” More than a decade later and two decades after I first started teaching, it still holds true. As an alum, this award is even more meaningful.
The best part about teaching communications is the ability to incorporate what is happening in the world into the classroom. Even though I have been teaching at AU for more than two decades, I am always reinventing what I am teaching since the field is constantly changing. That is what still excites me as well as thinking of innovative ways to increase student engagement. Many of my classes feature simulations of varying kinds so that students can be in the role of a practitioner rather than just listening to a lecture.
My best advice for faculty regarding teaching is to teach each semester and each class session like it is your first. That doesn’t mean you can’t reuse your materials and assignments. Of course, you can. But to view the materials through the lens of who is in your class that semester. Are they on the more quiet side? Then think of ways to alter your class activities to draw out more voices. Are they super engaged and eager for new challenges? Think of ways to harness that energy and try something different. Some of my most memorable classes were ones when I threw out the script and tried something different. By taking the pulse of the class every semester, faculty have the opportunity to meet students where they are and propel them further through their teaching. There is no greater achievement or deeper satisfaction than that!
Joe Campbell's most recent op-ed for the Messenger addressed shortcomings of the "1898" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Specifically, Joe wrote, "The exhibition gives little attention to the abusive Spanish policy [of reconcentration] that forced hundreds of thousands of Cuban non-combatants into concentration camps, resulting in death from disease and starvation of tens of thousands of women, children and old men." Reconcentration was a factor leading to war between the United States and Spain in 1898. The op-ed was posted August 12, at the 125th anniversary of the end of hostilities in the Spanish-American War.
Claudia Myers was the featured guest on the podcast series, "The Quidditas Factor" (S5 Ep 12) Hosted by Michael Arbouet, the show is now in its fifth season. It describes itself as, "the most captivating, informative and revealing stories from professionals in the arts and beyond." Claudia's wide-ranging interview includes how she got her start in the industry, her evolution as a storyteller, advice for emerging filmmakers, and more. The series is available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify.
Wendy Melillo is part of a team of three AU faculty researchers that won a $90,000 award for a project on antisemitism. The project, sponsored by AU’s Signature Research Initiative to promote cross-disciplinary scholarship at the university, focuses on studying antisemitic hate speech on extremist social media sites. Project goals include identifying coded or hidden terms used to foster racial animosity through database analysis, surveys of the American population regarding its understanding of the coded terms, and the development of software tools to automatically track the spread of this coded language. Wendy heads the project’s Data Analysis team and will discuss the effort, along with her faculty colleagues Jeff Gill (SPA) and Nathalie Japkowicz (CAS), at a September 27, 2023 event sponsored by AU’s Office of Research.
Bill Gentile and his wife Esther supported a recent four-day workshop with the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC) in Maine. What a wonderful team!
Standing next to Bill in the photo below is BDC founder and former New York Times photojournalist Mike Kamber. The Bronx is reported to contain the poorest congressional district in the United States (the 15th) and Mike and his staff work there primarily with young men and women of color. Bill’s wife, Esther (on the far right in the photo), is a critical component of these workshops. She works tirelessly with students on their projects, instructing them not only on the mechanics of Adobe Premiere but also on the power and the nuance of editing.
Esther and Bill are privileged to work with Kamber and his dedicated staff, and wish to thank them all for the opportunity.
