The Meek School of Journalism at Farley Hall
OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi is among 11 international institutions to form the Planet Forward University Consortium, which focuses on the use of multimedia and digital storytelling to educate and give voices to sustainability issues such as food security, water, energy and climate change.
As part of the collaboration, UM assistant professor of journalism Kristie Swain will represent the university on the Planet Forward Program Committee. She and five students will attend an annual, invitational sustainability summit in Washington, D.C., where they will receive media production training and connect with policymakers and innovators. Planet Forward also provides toolkits, internships, teaching materials and support to member schools.
“Planet Forward was formed to promote innovative ideas to address food, water, energy and environmental challenges confronting the planet,” said Tara Sonenshine, coordinator of strategic partnerships at Planet Forward and distinguished fellow at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. “The overall theory is that if we get people to focus on individual stories, innovations and inventions, you can explain the topics on a more understandable level.”
UM will host a campus video competition to select a student correspondent for Planet Forward and its partner media organizations, Swain said. University officials also will select a study abroad student to produce multimedia coverage of sustainability stories while overseas.
Ole Miss students began working with Planet Forward, housed within GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs, when it launched in 2009. The students have since produced more than 200 videos for the initiative, as part of Swain’s reporting classes.
“Of all our partners to date, Professor Swain’s classes have had the most regular and high-quality feature packages,” said Mike Devito, Planet Forward managing editor.
Swain said many of her students are enrolled in the beginning multimedia writing class, so they had never produced a video before.
“It is exciting to see them learn to produce a video, polish it using feedback from each other, me and Planet Forward producers, and finally get international exposure for their work,” Swain said.
At the end of each semester, UM students emerge with portfolio pieces published by a national outlet. The students’ work has been featured regularly on the Planet Forward home page, as well as in national webisodes and in blogs including the Huffington Post. A video about Oxford-University Transit innovations was a top finalist in an annual PBS competition.
Swain’s students often collaborate with researchers from the engineering and pharmacy schools, as well as the Office of Sustainability and Students for a Green Campus. Planet Forward has supported proposed outreach programs in several of UM’s major federal grant applications and has sparked many interdisciplinary conversations, Swain said.
As part of a Planet Forward project, Swain’s student Mary Frances Stephens interviewed civil engineering professor Waheed Uddin about whether finely ground recycled glass could be used to improve road safety and reduce heat-island effect. After his conversation with Stephens, Uddin developed a research paper on this topic to present at an international conference, Swain said.
“This is designed to be a very diverse program,” Sonenshine said. “(UM) has a lot of the things that we’re interested in: innovative research, connections to the medical school and law school and the National Food Service Management Institute.”
Along with UM, the Planet Forward University Consortium includes George Washington University, Middlebury University, Drake University, University of Arizona, Syracuse University, Sewanee, Clark Atlanta University, Furman University, Roger Williams University, University of Calgary and University College Cork in Ireland.
To learn more about Planet Forward, visit http://planetforward.org.