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As the spring in "spring semester" makes a belated appearance (with longer days and shrinking snow piles), there is much to look forward to.

Notably, the 2018 Storytellers' Institute announcement of this summer's fellows and public programming and MDOCS Fall 2018 classes.

In that future, however, lies the graduation of the first class of students who worked with MDOCS from the beginning of their (and our) time on campus.  It's going to be bittersweet bidding them a (temporary, we hope) farewell, and thanking them for the partnerships that they have fostered to help bring the program to life. 

In this newsletter, we celebrate the legacy projects MDOCS seniors have developed with DocLab directors Jesse O'Connell and Adam Tinkle, and highlight the virtuous cycle that we hope will continue: "once part of MDOCS, always part of MDOCS."  From creating informal spaces and conversations to support student work to eliciting untold stories, their contributions are a testament to opportunities fully grasped and a desire to enhance everyone's experience.

We're already on the right path.  Jasmyn Story and Noah Kernis, '15, returned to campus to teach a short course, "Tech for Change," combining restorative justice pedagogy, coding training, and research.  Plus, Harry Sultan, '17, took time out of researching a podcast project on Saratoga's Phroibition Era that started in Storytellers' Institute last year to connect with Doc Studies and History students and update us on the way that a semester at the Salt documentary program is launching a podcasting career.

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Each semester, MDOCS faculty and staff consider, with an abundance of amazing documentary work happening on campus and with our partners in the community, the importance of bringing visitors to expand our vocabulary and understanding of traditions, innovations and challenges.  Less is more is the watchword -- until it seems we have to choose.

After all, what would we turn away?  Pooja Rangan's important talk on the role of voice (and kinds of voices) privileged in documentary film making?  Jason Houston's compelling message to photography students across campus that artists can partner with scientists to help research make an impact?  The comments of a Palestinian student filmmaker that the Storytellers' Institute director found among the more thoughtful sessions she's participated in?  Oral historians Amy Starecheski and Virginia Espinosa and sociologist and maker Carolyn Chernoff who advocate finding innovative ways to connect with material through multimedia storytelling, 'zines and more?  The extraordinary documentary filmmakers in the Testing the Limits of Documentary Practice series organized by Cecilia Aldarondo?

And as importantly, what collaborations might be missed?  We all value the partnerships and opportunity to work with programs including Art, Art History, Environmental Studies and Sciences, History, Honors Forum, Idea Lab, International Affairs, Latin American and Latinx Studies, Media and Film Studies, Music, Opportunity Program, Project Vis, Special Programs, Scribner Library, the Sustainability Office, Tang Teaching Museum, World Languages and Literatures,  Sharing resources and supporting each other ensures that MDOCS fullfills its aspiration of being a collaborative that contributes to  the campus' ability to come together to connect with amazing scholars and makers in classrooms, conversations and presentations.

The connections that students make between a lecture in January, a screening in February and an exhibit visit in March; the presence of community members whose questions and experiences push the dialogue; and the suggestions for new partnerships that often emerge in the conversation over coffee and the Dining Hall's unparalleled chocolate chip cookies afterwards -- these moments remind us each semester that more is not only 'ok' but generative.

With the majority of MDOCS' spring events complete, I invite you to savor the bounty through the work of some of MDOCS unsung heros in storytelling: seniors Eleanor Green and Josephine Wong who designed most of the event posters below.  Without their skill in storytelling with words and images, awareness of programming would not be as strong.  As you may expect, we are archiving these documents which (a few years down the line) will help someone tell the story of MDOCS' early years.

In the immediate future, don't miss Lyd in Exile on April 2, the last of the Palestinian Voices series, and session four of Testing the Limits of Documentary Practice on April 12.  And I invite you to join us May 1, as Skidmore students present at the annual Academic Festival, and May 6, for the inaugural Showcase and Awards Show...as for the more soon!

Best,
Jordana Dym
Director, John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative

Selection of Spring 2018 MDOCS Event Posters