CHICAGO, IL (March 26, 2009) – This fall, Columbia College Chicago will launch the fourth year of Critical Encounters, the school’s campus-wide learning initiative, with an interdisciplinary examination of the historic, political, cultural and artistic impact of the concepts of “fact” and “faith,” and the way these notions are often intertwined in our culture.
In announcing the theme, which will be explored through both classroom curriculum and public programs, Provost/Senior Vice President Steven Kapelke emphasized that Fact & Faith is “designed to complicate our collective thinking about faith in our various public arenas rather than creating a ‘science versus religion’ dichotomy. It promises to be an exciting year.”
“In the realms of both science and religion, I am what you might call an ethnographic observer,” says 2009-10 faculty fellow Eric Scholl. “My father was a Methodist minister whose faith centered on social justice issues. My mother was a church-going agnostic school teacher. This background influenced my worldview and fed my work as a documentarian.”
In addition to exploring faith as it inspires, art, writing and creativity – “faith conceived as anything from the all-powerful God to the creative muse” – Scholl is interested in the border area between what any given perspective deems “fact” or “faith.”
“At this historic point we are primarily experiencing this as a dichotomy: science versus religion or religion versus religion,” he says. “And, today, science is the guiding force for many people - their religion so to speak. The point of overlap, the place where boundaries merge or blur, is a huge landscape ready for serious exploration.
“There are so many areas to examine with this theme. One challenge that we will face as we design curriculum and public programming is being able to separate the work, such as a poem, dance, painting or film, from the topic of the work. That is, can you critique a religiously inspired work on its artistic merits without appearing to be a heretic?”
A Fact & Faith task force comprised of Columbia faculty, students, artists and administrators from a cross-section of disciplines, as well as community partners will begin meeting in April with Scholl and his Critical Encounters partner Lott Hill, director of Columbia’s Center for Teaching Excellence. The group will develop curriculum and programming for the 2009-10 academic year.
Eric Scholl is an associate professor in the Television Department of Columbia College Chicago where he teaches courses in documentary, producing and directing. He is also an independent documentary filmmaker whose videos have been seen on local and national television and in festivals internationally. His documentary, The End of the Nightstick: Confronting Police Violence in Chicago, aired nationally on PBS’s “P.O.V.” showcase. Scholl’s latest work, It’s in the Blood: Leo Abshire & the Cajun Tradition, looks at the musical heritage of western Louisiana. Scholl is vice president of the board of Free Spirit Media, a not-for-profit organization that partners with schools and organizations to provide education, access and opportunity in media production to underserved urban youth. He holds an M.F.A. in Film & Video from Northwestern University.
Lott Hill is co-director of Columbia’s Center for Teaching Excellence, where he has served the college in various capacities since 2004. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Before coming to the Center for Teaching Excellence, Hill was College/Community Liaison for the Office of Community Arts Partnerships (now Center for Community Arts Partnerships), and he has taught in the departments of cultural studies, New Millennium Studies, and fiction writing. Lott has published and presented on a variety of topics, including service-learning, engaging students in the classroom, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. He has also published and performed numerous works of fiction.
Critical Encounters is a college-wide initiative intended to synchronize conversations between the school and the community in an ongoing dialogue around a central, socially and culturally relevant issue each academic year. The purpose of Critical Encounters is to further enhance Columbia College’s commitment to civic engagement by inviting students, faculty and staff to explore and reflect upon the chosen issue so that we better understand the impact of that issue in relation to our role as artists, communicators, and media makers, and as those who shape public perception and author the culture of our times.
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