TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility and the UA department of journalism and creative media will host the 11th Annual Documenting Justice film screening at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 25, at the Bama Theatre in downtown Tuscaloosa. The screening is free and open to the public.
The six short documentaries that will premiere were created by students from departments across the University who dedicated a year to learning how to document and analyze culture and social experience — and communicate about issues of justice and injustice in Alabama — through nonfiction filmmaking.
Working in pairs, 12 undergraduate and graduate students produced the documentaries as part of a two-semester course taught by award-winning filmmaker Andrew Grace, instructor in journalism and creative media. UA has offered the Documenting Justice course since 2006.
Documenting Justice is a signature initiative of the UA Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility, which established university-wide programming supporting the development of projects that nurture social responsibility and reflective, thoughtful citizenship.
“Ethical citizenship requires a strong sense of empathy and compassion,” said Stephen Black, UA Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility director. “Developing such qualities requires the ability to imagine what others see, feel and experience. A central focus of CESR, therefore, is the development of courses, such as Documenting Justice, in which students learn the personal stories of people outside their immediate sphere.”
Learn more about Documenting Justice and other CESR initiatives at www.cesr.ua.edu.
About the UA Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility
Created in 2005, CESR established university-wide programming supporting the development of projects that nurture social responsibility and reflective, thoughtful citizenship. The University of Alabama’s strong commitment to civic engagement and its history of community-university partnerships also serve as a foundation for the center. CESR staff develop — and assist faculty members in developing — service-learning courses that engage community organizations in partnerships designed to both enhance academic goals and apply scholarly learning to salient community issues. The service experiences are integrated into the students’ academic curriculum, providing structured time for students to think, talk and write about what they did and observed.
Source
Andy Grace, director, Documenting Justice, agrace@ua.edu, 205/348-8245