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Social Documentary and Civil Rights

Course Title: Intro to Social Documentary
Course Location: Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania, USA
Course Dates: two weeks, early summer 2009
Academic Credits: 3 credits in Journalism (JRNL 494), 3 credits in Service-Learning (SRVL 499)
Academic Instructor: Jen Saffron is an Instructor in English and Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and also teaches photographic practicum and history at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Course Description
Through introductory-level video production and a service-learning project in Alabama, this course introduces students to key aspects of the US Civil Rights movement and the important role that community organizers have played in the movement. Students will travel to the southern states of Alabama and Georgia for direct experience with community organizers and visits to historical sites, churches, museums, and other places that were and are integral to addressing equality rights in the United States. Students will learn ethnographic interview technique, video production and basic editing in order to create a short video that documents their experience in learning about equality rights. The video project will be integrated into their service project, completely, since the video is the service project. The footage will be collected for the archives of several partner institutions, including the Rosa Parks Museum and Library.

Lectures, videos, and readings will cover topics such as: "race beat" journalism of the late 50s/early 60s; African American history; collective and personal identity; integration of schools; racial discrimination and the law; voting rights, and hate crimes. Participants will witness important sites along the Alabama Civil Rights Museum Trail, including: the route of the march from Selma; the Tuskegee Institute; and the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

One aspect of this course is to engage students with students from other institutions, such as Tuskegee. In addition to peer interaction, students, the facilitator and faculty will stay for part of the trip in homes in Selma. This provides an opportunity for immersion in the culture and neighborhoods in which major civil rights events took place, and to stay directly with community leaders. Because this is a video production class, students cultivate direct access to community leaders and others, in order to interview them.

A short version of the video students produced as part of the summer 2008 course was shown at the Democratic National Convention and won a national competition. Learn more.

Program Fee: $3649 (before 12/31)* $3899 (before 2/15)**  $4149 (after 2/15) Apply Now!

The Program Fee includes room and board***, local programming, staffing, and transportation, university credits, international health insurance, a contribution to the local community organization, and recreational and cultural activities.

Students are responsible for international airfare, passports and/or visas, immunizations and any books or required course materials.

* Students who are accepted and hold their place with a non-refundable $500 deposit by December 31, 2008 receive a $500 tuition discount.

** Students who are accepted and hold their place with a non-refundable $500 deposit by February 15, 2009 receive a $250 tuition discount.

*** Students will stay in Pittsburgh for one week in order to receive camera tutorials and complete course readings. Room and board for this week is not included in the program fee, but affordable lodgings can be arranged for students that require them.