Short Films Documentary

Below is a short documentary about the short films that were created in my COMM 445 - Video II class this Spring. Coti and Jill also tell a little about the process of making a short and provide tips for aspiring filmmakers.

Stay tuned for a slightly more comical look at filmmaking by Lazy Bear Productions in How To Make Your Movie: Part Deux. I have a small cameo in which I play a nervous professor on camera for the first time.

More on Dilemmas - False Dilemmas..

False dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In television

Stephen Colbert, host of the Comedy Central news parody, The Colbert Report is known to ask his in-studio guests for their opinion of President George W. Bush. He usually gives them two choices: A great President? or The greatest President?, obviously leaving out any choice which is negative of the President.

Productivity advice for Gmail/Gcal users

This article has some good advice that I haven't been following:How to Make Gmail/Gcal Rock Your Tasks - lifehack.org

Mocs News coverage of VT Massacre

I think my students did a particularly good job of covering the Virginia Tech story. Check it out here: Mocs News.

Model-Netics

I attended a presentation today by the director of HR for UTC on Model-Netics. What is Model-Netics you ask?

Model-Netics is a comprehensive management training and development program.

I thought this tied in really well with the Performance Assessment course Dr. Bernard taught this summer and I will plan to take the 20 week course next Fall as soon as I have finished my core courses. Though not a credit course, it definitely fill a leadership gap I need to fill as part of my ILLP.

Gladwell Blog

Great stuff here on Malcolm Gladwell's blog.

The Master Plan

UTC TV: Center for Television, Web, Documentary and Digital Film Production

UTC Digital Productions - web. film. television.

The UTC ________ will exemplify UTC's presence as an engaged metropolitan university.

The staff of the Center in collaboration with students, faculty and external partners, will work to educate and enrich the lives of students as well as serving the needs of the greater Chattanooga community by producing high-impact programming, archiving and distributing campus content, providing embedded learning opportunities for students, and serving the production needs of the this university and its partners.

Staff:
Director ($50K) - oversees operations of all campus media projects. Hiring decisions made along with board of representatives from University Relations, Continuing Education, Athletics, The Lupton Library, and The Information Technology Division. Position funded by Chancellor's Office. Management of all center operational budgets. Grant-wriitng for special projects.

Television Studio Coordinator/Producer - ($35K) Scheduling of Television Studio activities and shooter/editor for all campus promotional videos, from commercials to recruitment CD-ROMS. Coordinates programming on UTC Television on Comcast Cable Channel 3 and on-campus programming to video kiosks and dorms. Provides video production support and consultation for entire campus, particularly students and staff in the Communication Department. Teaches 1 course per semester and oversees daily student news productions. Position funded by University Relations (67%) and Communication Dept (33%). Oversees 1 graduate assistant (videogapher) @ 30 hours per week, and 1 student worker @ 20 hours per week.

Podcasting Coordinator ($35K) - Scheduling recordings of archival footage of campus events and speakers for live webcast and podcasting from UTC.edu and GoMocs.com. Responsible for encoding and maintaining RSS feeds and reporting on subscribership. Also works with Distance Learning to develop and implement online courses. Position funded by Lupton Library(33%), Continuing Education (33%), and Athletics (33%). Oversees 2 student workers @ 20 hours per week.
Also potential for grant-funded position for developing online resources for students with disabilities working with the OSD.

Chief Engineer ($35K) - Design, installation, maintenance, upgrade, and training for all Center activities to include: Television Studio and podcasting cameras and related equipment, television master control and podcasting servers, a centralized control room, Athletic venue installations and video operations and videoconferencing classrooms. Provides training to students, faculty and staff in operation of various facilities. Position funded by Continuing Education (33%), Athletics (33%), and Information Technology (33%).

UR CE COMM Athltcs Lupton ITD
Dir

Studio Cdr 23,450 11,550

Podcast Cdr 11,550 11,550 11,550

Chief Engr 11,550 11,550 11,550

Dept Totals: 23,450 11,500 11,500
23,450 23,450 11,500

Departmental yearly budgets:
Studio budget $30K recover 50%
Podcasting/Archival $15K
CE equipment (paid for from DL funds) $10K

Tech fees pick up operational costs for student-focused programs.

Community-focus - PSAs and films

Note to self..

UPDATE: I will be turning in a strategic plan for the studio as my optional assignment for EDD 761 - Organizational Theory and Development.

Dr. Tucker has mentioned that my "grand vision" for the UTC Television Studio should be a big part of my ILLP. More to come.

AIDS movie

Worked with these girls from Upward Bound to help them produce a short film about AIDS entitled The Domino Effect: How I got AIDS. Pretty impressive, they came up with the idea, wrote the script, directed and acted, and made editing decisions. Leslie Smith with Upward Bound does an awesome job with these kids and that program seems to have a big impact.

Chattanoogan.com wrote up a good article here.

Ongoing projects

Language Learning videoconferences with Mexico - These monthly conferences take place with local elementary school children from The Bright School and with children in a suburb of Mexico City. The kids speak back and forth in each other's language and are able to ask questions about each other's culture. Read all about it in this article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

MIT Enterprise Forum - a satellite downlink brought to UTC by the Riverbend Technology Institute and yours truly. "'Talk to an Angel: Crucial Connections to Early Stage Capital' is a look at how entrepreneurs and angels can find each other for funding opportunities, and work together after the deal is done." More info here.

Girls Inc. - helping students learn basics of the communications industry, particularly in helping them create a public service announcement for Breast Cancer awareness.

COMM 400 Documentary class - provided technology and storytelling advice and served as a judge for awards given at their final presentation.

Back Row Film Series and Workshops - coordinated and planned curriculum for three free filmmaking workshops for teens concentrating on screenwriting, shooting, and editing independent films. Also on planning committee for the Back Row Film Series.

Chattanooga Film Commission - invited by local filmmaker Jarrod Whaley and Missy Crutchfield to serve on the local projects committee of the city's new film commission. This committee's purpose is to support and encourage local filmmaking.

Youth Documentary Project - sponsored by the Association for Visual Artists, this project partners local filmmakers with teens at afternoon rec centers to study and create short documentaries.

The Enterprise Center - Created promotional video materials for the Maglev train DVD, edited from existing and computer simulated footage of magnetic levitation train footage to educate Chattanoogans about the potential of a high speed magentic levitation train from Chattanooga to Atlanta.

Camp Spectrum - organizing a one-day workshop for teens with autism to learn various aspects of television and video production.

Lunch

Had lunch with Missy Crutchfield from the Arts and Education office with the city and Brian Gray from Comcast about doing a live TV show from UTC's studio. The focus would be on, you guessed it, Arts and Education in Chattanooga. Sounds like a go for April.

You could say a television program has a curriculum, in the sense that each show has a theme, units of study, discussion of the topic, feedback from the audience, and sometimes assessment (ratings, though we don't get any on public access).

Was also interesting to find out that both of the other persons have interest in a locally produced children's television show.

Curriculum Planning for Girls, Inc.

I guess I am involved with curriculum planning all the time, though even more often I guess it relates to instruction. However, this summer, Girls Inc. of Chattanooga and UTC are hosting summer camps in Journalism and Broadcasting and I have been in on the curriculum planning for those meetings as they will be using our TV studio and I am the resident TV guru.

Mocs News story in The Echo

Mocs News is one of my proudest achievements at UTC, not that I do much more than facilitate, but its all of the students' hard work that makes it happen.

"Mocs News boosts broadcasting dreams"
By: Laura Bond
Issue date: 2/9/06 Section: News

According to one UTC student, future broadcasters receive valuable experience while working on Mocs News.

Emily Edwards, a Chattanooga senior and a Mocs News anchor, said Mocs News offers excellent experience for beginners.

"Broadcasting is my dream," she said. "Everyone has got to start somewhere, especially in this profession."

"Broadcasting is my dream," she said. "Everyone has got to start somewhere, especially in this profession."

Being an anchor on Mocs News has helped Edwards become comfortable on camera.

She said: "The anchor position allows you to put yourself out there in front of the camera and get used to being on television. You can watch the episode following the show and constructively criticize yourself in order to improve."

At her job as an anchor, Edwards is responsible for writing the entire newscast as well as hosting the newscast with another student.

According to Chris Willis, the faculty advisor for Mocs News, there are about 16 students working for Mocs News, either receiving payment or school credit for their work.

Some students also volunteer their time. Edwards joined the team in January and volunteers at the station for about six hours a week.

According to Willis, the Mocs News program started three years ago by several UTC students.

A typical newscast covers campus events, entertainment and sports.

Students go through an audition process before given the opportunity to be on the air.

Willis said, "The students who want to be on-air try out for the positions by reading an example script off of the teleprompter.

"Then the news directors and I make the decisions," he said.

Willis said they try to provide everyone with on-air experience if they desire it.

Edwards said being in front of the camera was difficult at first.

"At first I was nervous, especially during tryouts, but I got over it by the next show," she said.

"Once you realize you are getting into what you want to do for the rest of your life, it calms your nerves and you want to show everyone what you are capable of doing," she continued.

Anybody, whether they have experience in broadcast, is encouraged to join the team.

"Students with broadcasting courses or work experience are terrific, but we can train anybody," Willis said.

"Students might perform better in [communication] classes having had Mocs News experience under their belts," he added.

Edwards said, "Mocs News offer[s] so many opportunities off-and-on camera, and there is always someone you can shadow or [who] is willing to help you out."

In addition to the regular newscast, there is a new sports show.

According to Willis, the student-produced show, called "R U Serious?" is similar to network sports shows like "Cold Pizza" or "Best Damn Sports Show."
The show covers local, national and international sports.

Both Edwards and Willis recommend students watch the news programs to receive information about UTC.

"Mocs News comes from a student point of view, so I think students would be interested [in] hearing the news from their own point of view," Willis said.

Edwards said, "In reading over scripts, I myself have found out about campus-related information that I would never [have] known unless I had been watching Mocs News."

Mocs News airs on Comcast cable channel 3. Join the Mocs News team by visiting Chris Willis, Phillip Brown or Shaadi Marand on Monday, Wednesday or Friday at noon in the Metropolitan Building.

Autobiography

My Life So Far - Chris Willis

In 1970, before I was born, my parents and sister left the United States to live in Southeastern Asia, on the peninsula of Malaysia. After settling in the city of Malacca they began worshipping together as a family and invited people they met to visit them and study the Bible (except for Muslims, with whom it was illegal to proselytize). My sister was 7 years old and went to a Malay school, and learned the language along with English, which is the national language of trade and business. I�ll never forget stories of her and the other children being gathered into the school from the playground when a tiger had entered the city out of the nearby jungle. Malaysia is very much a part of my life today; I was conceived, but not born, there. In 1973 my family came back to Tennessee for my birth, and at 6 weeks old I was taken back to Malaysia, where my family then settled near the capitol of Kuala Lumpur. In 1975 the Islamic government forced all Christian missionaries to leave. Most left when the orders were given, but my parents were the last to go, staying until the last day with their new family in the church they had established.

I don�t have any memories of actually living there as we left when I was two years old, but growing up with all of the objects my family had collected, the pictures, slides and super 8 movies Dad drug out from time to time, and the retelling of stories, this lore shaped my childhood. Also, we traveled there on mission trips about every 5 years when I was 8, 12, and 18, for about 6 weeks at a time; entering the country with tourist visas. During these trips I was able to connect stories with people and places, and I believe my parents nurtured within me an exploratory spirit. I love the country and the people, and have always felt pride in my mother and father who chose such a strange and remote place to work in.

After returning to the United States my father took a position preaching in a church in Pinellas Park, Florida, where I �officially� grew up. There I formed my first memories, in that house with all the furniture and pictures from Malaysia, the Chinese masks over my Dad�s desk, the carved elephant my Mom carried in her lap on a train returning from a trip to Thailand, and the giant glass jars from a wax factory (one of which I later broke). Having been born in December, in Florida I was able to start Kindergarten at 4 years old. Either I was precocious at home, or as my mother says, I was just ready to go at that early age. This caused me to always be a year younger than all my friends. During the eternal summers off and the afternoons I ran around the neighborhood barefoot, often with no shirt, playing by myself a lot or with two girls who lived up the street. At some point around the 4th grade I got glasses, which invariably affects any young kid. Also, my sister left for college, and being 8 years older than me, I felt like an only child growing up.

A noteworthy story from my childhood involves the 4th of July. I don�t remember what year it was, but after a picnic and day at the beach that ended in a thunderstorm and flat tire while I was riding home with my best friend Brian. His Dad and older brother Joe got out of the car and were walking up the road to find someone to help when Joe was hit and killed by a drunk driver. I remember being at the hospital and later at someone from the church�s house with sparklers when they told Brian his brother was dead. From then on Brian and his sister were spoiled, never disciplined, and today Brian, my best friend in my youth, is doing life in prison for an armed robbery where someone was killed. We had quit hanging out somewhere around 10. This experience always caused me to question the social responsibility of those who not only drink and drive, but people who would let somebody get into a car drunk to attempt driving. From early on I felt that those who enable dangerous behaviors are also to some extent responsible.

Religiously, I learned somehow during my youth to be ashamed of my family�s faith, and my father�s profession as a Church of Christ preacher. I tried to hide it from everybody, perhaps because I invariably argued about religion with anyone who found out. I�m not really sure why I felt this anxiety. I just laid it on myself. In 1986 my parents decided to move back to Tennessee, and my father took a job at the Eastdale Church of Christ in Chattanooga. I took this opportunity to get over my fear of people knowing about my religion and felt a great difference between acceptance of religion in Tennessee compared to where we lived in Florida.

One of the only truly integrated churches, Eastdale was an incredibly important place for me. I was very used to being around black people, having been bussed to formerly black schools in mostly black neighborhoods in Florida. I was amazed when we moved to Chattanooga to see almost all-black and all-white schools, and wondered how the public school system was getting away with such segregation. I also never realized before how divided a city could be, with the black parts of town and white�though I just probably never realized this was going on where I lived in Florida. I became interested in civil rights and race relations due to these experiences, which probably led me to study Sociology during my college career. However, none of this made much difference in my life at the time since I was enrolled in an almost all-white private Christian school for the first time in my life in January of 1987 at 13 years old.

I eventually formed friends at my new school, but it took quite a while. For a lanky 13 year old, with ugly glasses, bad clothes, and weird personality, I ranked very low in the social scale at a private school. Almost even more tragic, a few years later with a coincidence of getting contacts, hand me down clothes, and being in the 8th grade, I did a complete flip-flop, going from the lowest of the nerds to being a fairly well accepted member of the social elite. In High School I was in the �In� crowd, which by its nature had to pick on others. This was always difficult for me, and I did whatever I could to help bridge that gap. I remembering hugging a particularly large girl in our class in public and being dragged aside by one of the other �cool� guys who said something to the effect of, I don�t ever want to see you touching that girl again. Sadly I probably never did.

The cruelty of being young lessened in the last couple years of High School, but during that time I become known as a troublemaker among the faculty. I wasn�t an athlete like all of my friends, so when we all got caught doing something, usually very stupid and immature but not illegal or immoral, somehow it was always only me who took any serious punishment. It could be said that my leadership abilities started in pulling giant pranks at our school, from systematically disorganizing our the library, to a scavenger hunt of school materials that were collected in lockers until the items had to be stored off site, to an incident with a stolen school bus that we pushed nearly a mile from the school before we finally all got tired of the theft. I rebelled more and more, my logic being, Hey, I�m getting in trouble anyway, I might as well have fun. Later I was dating the only known drug user in our school, throwing drinking parties at my house whenever I was left home alone, and opposing my teachers in class which brought me very close to expulsion just before graduation. Yet, somehow I made it out alive with a diploma, and there were a few bright spots in my education that have been very important to me since.

In an 11th grade English class we were given an assignment, probably just as a time killer, to write a descriptive scene about a certain situation. While most of the class, at least the guys, tried to write asinine stories full of innuendo, I took it seriously for once, and my teacher read my work to the class�after which I rushed out, not wanting to take any heat or even praise for having done the work. Even though I�m certain she hated me, my teacher selected me for AP English the next year, helped me focus and tighten my writing skills, and eventually awarded me the yearly creative writing award which I still have in my desk today.

My first week of college was a big transition. Instead of moving off and leaving home, home moved off and left me. The church at Eastdale broke up during my senior year of High School, leaving me pretty disillusioned. All of the remaining white families decided to move to a white church, leaving the black families with an enormous building they couldn�t afford to keep using. I began questioning the relationships these groups had supposedly had. I felt like it was very unethical to sever all ties, as though everything this group had been through together meant nothing. If our core values are to love our neighbors, it shouldn�t matter if they are black, white or purple. Of course they had the right to leave, but it didn�t strike me as just. I also questioned the leaders of the church who were also all white. It all seemed counter to our supposed common values of equality and love.

Another church in town gave my father a short term job working with the white families who had come over from the disbanded Eastdale. During the first week of classes at UTC, my Dad accepted a position with the Morrison Church of Christ in middle Tennessee, and moved there. That week I moved into the UTC Christian Student Center. Moving into the Christian Student Center was not any part of my plans when getting ready to go to college. I was 17 years old and just planning to party with my friends, when my Dad suggested I stop by the CSC and ask about a room, where he�d known students from the Church of Christ that stayed there in the past, who paid no rent. Thinking it would never actually happen, I stopped by, asked about a room, somebody was moving out and I could move in immediately. This was the first of many doors that seemed to open before me, doors which proved very influential on the changes that would take place in the next few years of my life.

Students living at the CSC were given the title student directors and were expected to participate in the operation of center. I took it on myself to organize fun events, most of which were outdoor activities related to my own interests�hiking, camping, and rock climbing. This proved to be a big hit with the crowd at that time and I was surprised at how many people had never done any of these activities. We were also expected to lead students in Bible studies, devotionals, and other spiritual activities during which I kept a low profile--at least until after that first year.

During the summer after my freshmen year I went on a mission trip to Chinle, Arizona on the Navajo reservation. We worked with a church there that has struggled for years to keep its doors open, when most Navajo were not interested in their own traditions, much less converting to Christianity. While alone one night I was able to do a lot of thinking about my life and realized for the first time that my religion was not my own�that I had never listened to, or thought seriously about religion. Epiphany! I think until then I had a pretty warped sense of salvation, basically considering myself damned to hell because I never could measure up to the expectations I felt others had of me--certainly not those of my administrators in High School, nor my parents. But I determined that night to explore my own spirituality, to interact with God on a more real and reasonable level, and to study the scriptures I had taken for granted all my life.

Slowly I began to develop a new understanding of myself and my responsibilities to serve my fellow man. I was learning that I had a quality that seemed to invoke trust and found many people coming to me with problems or issues they were having, and I actually believe people wanted my advice. In my work at the CSC I began leading Bible studies and never shied away from tough passages, or ones that are particularly controversial in religious groups. I also organized service projects and steered our group into volunteering time with Inner City Outreach, a program that works with kids from the projects that teaches Bible and character. I went on a trip with my parents during the summer after my sophomore year to Malaysia and spoke and lead singing during worship services overseas. When I came back I helped start and served as a member on a new missions committee at our church. All of this involvement with a part-time job and full-time school load kept me very busy, but I thrived on the pressure and performed fairly well.

In school I had chosen, somewhat randomly, to pursue a BS in Environmental Sciences. My concentration was in Sociology, so sometime before graduation I looked into just doing a double major in that area and it was only a few more classes to do that. I could just as easily have studied Geology, English, or Communications; but I narrowed things down the best I could. I became somewhat dissatisfied with the doom and gloom prophecies of my Environmental Science professors and books toward the end, and enjoyed the theory and practicality of studying people from a sociological perspective. What can I say about all this scattered pursuit of knowledge except for what I told Dr. Petzko during our introductions, I love to learn.

After graduation I decided to go immediately into graduate school, pursuing a Master�s in English: Writing�an attempt to get back to my true love. This gave me terrific opportunities to hone my writing skills, with many thanks to Dr. Eileen Meagher who took me under her wing in the program. I was able to focus on hypertext on several papers, as an emerging form of literacy and wrote a paper that was published in the Academic Exchange Quarterly. My focus was using simple tools that are freely available on the internet for teachers of all ages to immerse their students in inter-connected, hyperlinked stories.

In 1997 I was able to go on a mission trip to India for 5 weeks with a good friend and his minister. The purpose of the trip was to visit churches in remote villages that aren�t often visited by foreign missionaries and to set up medical camps in the poorest places where vitamins and medicines were dispensed by local doctors. We also made arrangements for children with cleft pallets to have cosmetic surgery which was extremely affordable for us to arrange, but well out of their reach. These surgeries made tremendous impacts in these kids lives as some were disowned because of their appearance and they were considered untouchables. It was amazing to be in so many places where the children had never before seen a white man and I was stunned by the amount of respect and interest people had in us, just because we were American.

This trip was a pivotal point in my life. In many ways it reaffirmed beliefs I had about America�s need to share its wealth and technology with the rest of the world, but it also tested my religious beliefs greatly. While I felt and still feel very culturally relative, I was able to make firsthand judgments of how religion and culture determine a person�s outlook on life. While I respect Hinduism, Islam, and various interpretations of Christianity and other religions, I believe strongly that there are some absolute truths (though few), and the God I believe in wouldn�t have people to live so happily with America�s wealth while others try to live in the squalor and filth of the cities and villages I saw in India. I also learned the value of our Western water supply system as I spent three of the five weeks throwing up and worse, losing a total of 12 pounds in all.

After the trip I kept close correspondence with a friend I�d made in India who was a preacher and English teacher named Suri. Suri is lower caste and normally would have lived a life working in the fields. He struggled to afford to go to college to learn English and later went to a preacher training school. He is the most humble, loving man I have ever met. After my talking about Suri so much a class at my church asked if they could help him in any way and I arranged for them to send him money to help pay for him to preach in the village he�d grown up in. Since then we have also begun sending money to help several students he�s working with to go to college, something these kids would never have been able to do as they are also lower caste.

Another important person, actually by far the most important person in my life that I had met during college, was my wife Kerry. We met at the Christian Student Center. She is a serious woman who I enjoy making laugh. Kerry knows how to get things done, and enjoys working hard on all the crazy ideas I have and helps to make them a reality. She was very encouraging to me in college while I was teaching Junior High kids at church and helping start new projects at the CSC. Perhaps the greatest thing that we share is our unique outlook or point of view. We are both very spiritual in our faith, but we�re not afraid to admit our faults and talk about the world in frank terms. She is the only person I see things almost completely eye-to-eye with, can share anything with, and have learned more from her than anyone else I�ve ever met. She opens my eyes to new things everyday.

On October 10, 1997, Kerry and I were married. I had thought about marrying her every moment of the five weeks I was in India, particularly when I was sick, and I asked her a month or so after returning. My father performed the ceremony and we were married at our church with all our friends and family in October of that year. Instead of buying expensive rings or throwing a lot of money at our wedding, we saved everything we could for a trip to Australia, where we went on our honeymoon. To this day I love horrifying people by telling them I didn�t buy my wife a diamond ring, in fact, both are rings were the cheapest available at Wal-Mart. But our marriage is incredibly strong, cheap rings aside, more than anything because of our shared core values.

In our marriage we have upheld our beliefs that a Christian couple should work hard to serve others, to better our community, and to share the gospel. We have always strived to be examples to our friends, family, and fellow-church members of what Christians should be like and to do what Christians should be doing. We have tried to do this without becoming martyrs, without looking down our noses on others when we might think they should be doing more for church or community. It�s a delicate balance between service and leadership by example and pissing someone off. I�ve found this balance to be one of the biggest challenges of my life.

In 1998, we went on a 9-day medical mission trip to Nicaragua where we assisted doctors and nurses in a week-long medical camp and help distribute medicine, clothing and food items, and participate in outreach efforts. We did this the next two years as well. In 2000, after a windfall that left us with some money, Kerry suggested we use the money to pay for a trip to Malaysia, where she�d never been. When we landed she said, I guess I�m officially a Willis now. In Malaysia we were able to meet with people my parents had converted before I was born and who had known my family through the years. We went in as tourists, but I was able to speak to a couple of church groups, and we met with a large number of Christians. We also enjoyed a fluctuation in the exchange rate the made our American dollars go very far, giving us our first and only taste of luxury hotels.

Also during that year I began working more with the Inner City Outreach program. This is definitely the Robert Greenleaf, �servant-leader� phase of my life. Kerry and I volunteered to be bus captains. This volunteer job involved curriculum design and planning for the Pre-K through 1st grade kids we picked up in the Harriet Tubman project in East Chattanooga and then recruiting volunteers to help teach and work with the kids. Not having kids at the time, or an ounce of knowledge about teaching this age group, this was a grueling commitment for us�especially with our full-time jobs. I think we both grew a lot from it and I hope to return to the work in coming years.

I also worked with the Hispanic ministry for several years that was going on along with the Inner City program. I began driving a bus on Sundays to pick up Hispanics who lived downtown who needed a ride to church each week. During the long services I would usually volunteer in their nursery, but eventually I was asked to participate in their worship and I preached there several times. This sparked an interest in me to start studying Spanish again, and the last two summers I�ve taken classes at UTC to brush up my foreign language skills.

In 2002 I decided to plan a return trip to India and made arrangements to travel over my time off at UTC�s Christmas break. Kerry and I had been trying to get pregnant for a few months, so when I called back home from a dirty street in Andra Pradesh, India, Kerry told me she�d felt sick and had taken the home test which showed positive. A doctor�s visit later confirmed it, and I was able to share the great news with my beloved friends and brethren in India on New Year�s 2003. They celebrate the New Year by welcoming in the year with great fanfare and wishing for great things. This was a great year for me, though it involved cleaning up vomit in various parts of the house, learning the wrath of a pregnant woman, and learning to be a humble servant who listens to his wife without trying to solve her problems.

Jackson was born on August 14th, 2003 and has changed my life so much. He sits here beside me as I type now and I see so much of myself in him. He loves books. He speaks better than most kids his age, in my humble opinion, and he is funny and silly and curious and sometimes cantankerous. Before he was born I started a blog (http://www.chattablogs.com) with the express purpose of documenting changes in my life that have taken place as a result of being a parent. I was worried I would lose some of my idealism or that I would become complacent with the status quo I see all around me�at work, at church, in the community. Would my sense of social responsibility and belief in having an active faith disappear? Well, I haven�t changed as much in my values as I thought I might, but journaling about the progress has been insightful.

In my work I�ve been able to develop as a leader and as a teacher. As a Technology Specialist I am able to dabble in various new and exciting communication technologies, I write grants for state-or-the-art computer and television equipment for our TV studio, and work one on one with students, faculty, staff, and outside clients. Over the last 5 years we�ve spent over half a million dollars renovating our space and outfitting the space with TV equipment. This is great fun and I usually try to spend some time each week tinkering, trying to make things were better or to streamline our workflow. I also feel that it is important for leaders to stay abreast of technology and to learn to expect change, not fight it. I try to do this by keeping my hands dirty in the all of the projects that I work on along-side of my students and employees.

As an adjunct instructor I�ve taught COMM 345 and 445, Video I and Video II for the past five years. Every year I�m more impressed with my students and have more and more shining stars�the ones that make all the extra work worth the payoff. Last year several students took my idea of creating a film festival in Chattanooga on as a project and earned credit organizing the first annual Firefly Film Festival. This event was a crowning achievement in my work. We had submissions from all over the country and a modest crowd of about 150 showed up to watch short films, videos and documentaries. This year we are trying to do bigger and better things, bringing in a guest speaker that we hope will draw a larger crowd.

I�ve always supported the concept of hands-on learning, particularly in areas of technology. This takes much more time, more one-on-one contact, but I�m learning more about how to use students to teach other students and to assign group work more effectively. I�ve learned that students like learning and being creative, but usually only in specific areas they are already interested in. So I drop subtle hints about my wishes and then try to steer them into accomplishing what I think they are capable of. Now I�m trying to let go even more and drop hints about what I would like to see, and then just watch what they do with it. I love helping other students and our clients achieve the vision for a project they see in their head. I feel this is my greatest talent in my professional career.

I enjoy my work tremendously, but I feel like I�m at a point where I want to do something new. I need to. I have watched with interest as this Ed.D. program has developed but I also looked into pursuing a Ph.D. in Communications from UT Knoxville, which may have been a much better choice if I want to get on faculty here at UTC. However, I feel very strongly that this program is much better suited to my interests, and also much more adaptable. The program at UT sounded very traditional and probably wouldn�t have challenged in the areas I am interested in.

I�m not exactly sure where I want to be in the next 5 years. I want to prepare myself for several options and to try to accomplish some projects I have in mind during this time. I have in mind doing a documentary about Hispanics in Chattanooga�Why do they come here, where are they from, what are they doing? How is living and working in America changing their lives? I am very curious about this population because I�ve seen so many that live in downright slums and I know how hard they work in jobs that most others wouldn�t want.

Another project, and one I feel I could work into this program, is to develop an educational children�s television show. I would like to study the current patterns in children�s television and success rates of shows in America vs. those in other countries and to determine what program styles yield greatest success in teaching literacy. I believe Chattanooga is at the heart of a wealth of regional knowledge and content that could be incorporated into such a show. I would like to use local learning destinations such as the Tennessee Aquarium, the Creative Discovery Museum, Hunter Art Museum, the Chattanooga Regional History Museum, Rock City and Ruby Falls, Chickamauga battlefield and other local parks, and then expanding out into nearby regional locations such as the Marshall Flight Center in Birmingham, AL. The show would be based on earth science, history, mathematics, art and music, but would all be drawn together in language and literacy. I have several contacts interested in the idea and I believe it would be an easy sell in this community, but I would only want to do it if it were going to be effective in reaching its goals of teaching literacy and helping area teachers connect with kids. So, if I were able to do a lot of the research into those areas within my coursework would hopefully give me time to build a case for such a program, possibly shoot a pilot, and perhaps graduate with a new career waiting for me in producing my show. I just need a name�

Thinking about my life in terms of ethical leadership I feel like I�ve done good things, led good projects, but my motivation was not always from a logical or honest place within me. I have felt guilted into serving others. I have guilted others into service. Both situations have led to results that are sometimes positive and sometimes negative. I realized this when I had really laid it on thick to my best friend about this mission work in Nicaragua. After a lot of pressure from me, he went on the trip and nearly had a breakdown. I realized then that if someone did not want to be involved with a project, they really shouldn�t be�for the project�s sake and for their own. Much like the statement I connected with so much from Ayn Rand in our readings where she says to help another man �if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle.� (Quoted in Ciulla, p.52) I now try to consider motivation carefully before I dive into something, and before I encourage anyone else to do something they might make them feel uncomfortable. You have to have a desire. I still believe everyone should be willing to try new things and then decide what they like or dislike, but I am much more careful about what I push someone into trying and whom I push. I do want to create a desire within people around me and my students to help others, to be creative, and to use reason their pursuit of truth or God.

I feel like I have grown in recent years in my concept of ethical leadership. I entered college with a concept of everything being gray areas, a �no absolutes� type of thinking. I reacted against that and left college with very specific opinions of what is right and wrong, based largely on my narrow interpretation of scripture at the time. Today I feel more centered, in that I recognize the shades of gray that exist on any issue, but I have never felt indecisive because of ambiguity�just more cautious. My ethical platform is of course defined by my faith, but not without reason, tolerance of other�s ideas, compassion, or social responsibility. I sincerely believe that people must make decisions based on logic and reason, especially in religious matters. There are obvious dangers in using religion as a power structure where manipulation of people�s fears can be used to create conformity, political pressure, or just a status quo. I believe those who choose to follow Christ should fight this trend by setting an example of service and by applying Biblical truths to their own lives�using logic and reason in their interpretation of scripture.

I am constantly arguing about logic and reason being important among my Christian peers, who sometimes accuse me indirectly of not having enough faith, or of relying on myself too much and not on God. My argument and conviction is that God gave us mental faculties and along with everything else, to use them. Religion based on a blind faith seems to be just an extension of someone�s previously held beliefs. To be an ethical leader I want to set an example of reason and logic being closely related to faith. I couldn�t have faith in God if it didn�t make any sense to me.

In evaluating my competencies in the areas we are covering in the Ed.D. I feel most comfortable with Technology. With Karen Adsit as my mentor I feel I will be able to fleche out my knowledge in the areas of media and communication with a broader knowledge of copyright and fair use issues, as well as the quickly changing area of ethics in digital media. I am of course very interested in Learning as a subject, and I valued Jim Tucker�s comments about the importance of emphasizing learning over education or even school reform. I have a lot to learn about instruction, especially not having taken the first undergraduate education course, but I do have my own hands-on approach to teaching technology that works well when given the appropriate resources and students have time to pursue a project they are interested in.

The areas of research and assessment are very interesting to me. I have a limited background in research. I developed a survey on a ten percent random sample of the UTC student body for a sociology project. The goal was to evaluate environmental awareness of average college students. I would like to do other research, particularly into technology education practices. I am interested in assessment of television production curriculum in High schools and colleges. Also, I would like to learn about other universities� development of television studio and broadcasting courses, how are the facilities organized and funded, and how do they interact with the community.

I feel I have a lot of work to do in the area of ethics and leadership. I�ve been in situations with ethical dilemmas where I�ve made leadership decisions, but looking back those must have come from a gut reaction, not from a particular ethical platform that I had logically come to. I want that, I want to be able to make decisions with greater reflection and evaluation, but also more quickly, and I feel the study of ethical dilemmas this semester has been helpful in opening my eyes to the commonalities between seemingly different situations. When it comes down to it, most dilemmas are best solved by compromise and finding the correct trilemma alternative is of great importance. I want to develop as a leader professionally and as I am seeking some sort of career change, I would like to find some area of public interest that appeals to me where I can learn and grow while leading others in some work that affects the common good of this community. That may be with our local public television or in public schools or in any number of the education-based public/private institutions in this city. Long-term I would like to travel abroad, perhaps teaching English at a university in Malaysia or India, but that will most likely be another twenty or so years out, so I am content to stay in this small town for now.

Looking back on my life its surprising how little I�ve changed in certain areas and how much I have in others. I still love to read and can�t put something down until I�ve finished it. I get ideas stuck in my head to create a new program, to edit a video a certain way, to teach my class with a new focus�things which make me lie awake at night. I feel like I attack problems very logically, thinking through most alternatives before choosing a course of action. I�ve of course gotten a little more conservative since the birth of my son, but not frighteningly so. I still have my ideals, but not exactly the direction in which to go pursuing them. I want to change the world. I believe I can, even if only in small, local ways. I just need to figure out how, and where, and how best to prepare myself. Long-term I�d of course like to retire early, go overseas somewhere and work with people in another culture. I find that so interesting and thrilling. But what I do over the next twenty years until I get there will largely be determined by my son, and as always by the opportunities that present themselves to me.

A good leader..

A good leader is really an assistant. When you empower people to make decisions and do their jobs, and facilitate them with the tools they need, how is that anything but good leadership..?

The Art of Leadership (preview)

Here is a preview of a project my students are finishing for Leadership Chattanooga.

mms://athena.ceca.utc.edu/video/leadership/dance2.wmv
http://athena.ceca.utc.edu/video/leadership/dance2.mov