Debra Herrick
Lecturer Wendy Eley Jackson teaches a class full of students

A unique pilot program at UC Santa Barbara focuses on writing for diverse voices, creating a new kind of space between a Hispanic Serving Institution and an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Ten Booker T. Washington Scholars from Alabama’s Tuskegee University — an HBCU — will spend the summer at UCSB — an HSI — taking classes in screenwriting. “We find ourselves at a pivotal juncture in our human history, where the call for fresh and diverse perspectives to be acknowledged is paramount,” said UCSB Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts and Professor Daina Ramey Berry. “It is time when compelling narratives must emerge and take center stage.”

The Tuskegee Scholars Program brings together 10 Black students from Tuskegee and 15 students from UCSB for six weeks to take classes in TV writing and introduction to cinema, along with field trips to studios in Los Angeles for hands-on experience. The program seeks to prepare students for careers in the film industry by providing exposure and research opportunities, especially for students who may not have had access to such experiences and those who seek to present different cultural perspectives in storytelling.

The program also aims to plant the seeds for an entertainment industry in Tuskegee by growing the local talent with guidance from top-level educators and industry professionals.

While UCSB’s Department of Film and Media Studies was launched in 1973, for Tuskegee the summer scholars program is a beginning, as the college seeks to develop its own film and media studies program. UCSB’s Tuskegee scholars are all working towards a concentration in film and media arts.

“In many ways, the program echoes the historic mission of Tuskegee University, which was founded to provide both academic and industrial education,” said Berry, who partnered with film and television executive Adriane Hopper Williams to launch the program.

“We are excited about our academic partnership that allows our students to be exposed to the film and entertainment industry.”

—Provost S. Keith Hargrove

Hallmark Mahogany’s “Napa Ever After” writer Wendy Eley Jackson, a UCSB lecturer, will teach the cohort’s flagship course in writing for television, including sections on the discovery and cultivation of story concepts, the language of film and the structuring of scripts. “Everyone writes from the lens of their experience or where they allow their imagination,” said Eley Jackson, who was born in Alabama. “Students really want to learn how to ‘write to voice’ more than ever before.”

Source and Full Article:
The Current