Department Thanks Pamela and George Hamel, Opens Hamel Family Digital Media Lab

Communication Arts faculty and staff gathered recently to welcome two very special guests, George (BA '80) and Pamela Hamel. At a September 28 reception hosted by Communication Arts, these generous supporters received the Department's collective thanks, and the event was capped off by the public introduction of the newly-completed Hamel Family Digital Media Lab.

George Hamel is a 1980 graduate of Communication Arts and he and Pamela have been active supporters of the University and the Communication Arts Department for several years. And there was much to celebrate at the reception. Through a 2005 gift from George and Pam Hamel, Communication Arts was able to establish its first named professorship. During the September 28 visit, the Hamels met for the first time Professor Sabine Gruffat, the Department's first Hamel Family Professor. The Hamels have also provided gifts to underwrite faculty research in Communication Arts and to provide stipends for Communication Arts student interns. While offering thanks to the Hamels on behalf of the College of Letters and Science, Dean Gary Sandefur also confirmed at the reception that their recent gift to L&S will establish the Hamel Family Faculty Fellowships.

George and Pam Hamel have a special interest in the Communication Arts teaching mission, and they took the initiative to fund implementation of the Hamel Family Digital Media Lab, a state-of-the-art instructional laboratory in Vilas Hall. With the support of Dean Sandefur and the College, construction and installation on the high-tech facility took place over summer 2007, and it was ready for service at the beginning of fall classes. The Hamels joined Communication Arts faculty and guests in visiting the new lab and learning about its impressive capabilities.

The Hamel Lab allows the Department to offer new courses in such fields as computer animation and interactive media. The facility features sophisticated computer work stations where students can simultaneously learn about digital media practices and develop their own creative skills. High speed interconnections allow students to view each other's work and to cooperate on projects, part of an intimate and collaborative learning atmosphere sustained by the lab'scareful design.

George Hamel described his and Pamela's feelings for the occasion and their connection to the Communication Arts Department: "It was a thrill for Pam and me to be there for the official opening of the new Digital Media Lab. Seeing students at work in the new lab, on state of the art computer equipment, instructed by Sabine Gruffat, was one of the most gratifying personal moments of our lives that either Pam or I can recall. Our personal goal is to continue to support the vision of the Com Arts faculty and help in our small way to ensure that it remains one of the most highly respected communication arts departments of any college/university in the country." For such support and good will, the Department confirms its deep appreciation.

Students Journey South to Study Civil Rights Movement

“It definitely changed my life,” said  Communication Arts major Njoki Kamuiru about Journey to the South, a civil rights study and service trip she embarked upon during spring break.

Kamuiru boarded a Badger Bus at the beginning of spring break along as part of a group of 13 undergraduates and two graduate students who traveled to Chicago, Highlander Folk School in eastern Tennessee, Birmingham, Selma, the Mississippi delta, and Memphis. The trip was lead by Professor Susan Zaeske, of Communication Arts, along with facilitators from the Diversity Education Program and the Equity and Diversity Resource Center. It was sponsored by Chadbourne Residential College (CRC), underwritten by grants from the Evjue Foundation and the UW Foundation for Transformative Experiences, and was offered as a course under CA 378, The Rhetoric of African American Discourse.

During the nine-day trip, students met with veterans of the civil rights movement, some of whom were leaders in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), others of whom were “foot soldiers,” who had marched on Bloody Sunday, and yet others who as children defied snarling dogs and pummeling firehoses in Birmingham. The group also toured museums, visited sites were historic events occurred, and attended services at historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. While in Selma, Alabama, students did their best to give back to the community by performing service work, which included cleaning a city park and cataloging hundreds of historical artifacts at the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute.

Brian Colella, a sophomore, marveled at how meeting veterans of the civil rights movement brought history to life. “When you read about the civil rights movement, you don?t think about it as something that is still alive, but when you go down there you learn that the movement did not end in the 1960s. It?s still going on.”

Before embarking on the journey to the South, students did indeed read about the history and rhetoric of the civil rights movement in CA 378, Rhetoric of African American Discourse, taught by Professor Zaeske. The course situated the civil rights movement in the wider context of African American resistance dating back to slavery as well as providing a history of persistent racial oppression from slavery, to Reconstruction, to Jim Crow. It then focused on the civil rights movement to help students gain an understanding of its major organizations, events, figures, philosophies, and rhetorical strategies.

“It was a dream to teach this course knowing that what we did in the classroom was preparation for even greater learning and doing in the immediate future,” contemplated Zaeske. “After reading recollections of the movement by the select few able to put their thoughts into print, we were able to talk to foot soldiers about their experiences. Thus, we gained a more nuanced understanding of history, and that matters greatly for us today because it is the sort of history in which the average person makes a difference.”

Samir Jaber, a CRC resident, elaborated on this theme, stating, “Diane Nash [leader of the 1960 Nashville lunch counter sit-ins] talked about the fact that the historical focus on Dr. King has discouraged people today from thinking they can make a change.” Continued Paula Hentz, a CRC resident, “Seeing the foot soldiers made me think, if they can do it, we can do it.”

Participants gained not only a sense of empowerment to make change in the world, but also a deepened sense of social responsibility. “We realize now that we have to give back,” explained Sarah Heidt, a CRC resident. “Seeing and hearing from these people makes us have to do something.”

And Journey to the South/CA 378 students are giving back. Before they even returned to Madison, while still riding on the bus, they began planning how to help Hayneville/Lowndes County, Alabama, develop a usable library. The group was made aware of the fact that this rural county ? one of the poorest in the nation ? has no library when they visited with Bob Mants, a former SNCC member who can be seen standing directly behind John Lewis in photographs of Bloody Sunday. Mants charged the group to contribute to the struggle for educational and economic justice by assisting the library.

The transformative effect of the trip is being felt by the group as whole as evidenced by their work on the library project and also by individuals. Kamuiru returned from Alabama flabbergasted by the fact that while Jim Crow laws ? those requiring separate bathrooms, etc., for “whites” and “coloreds” ? are no longer enforced, they are still on the books. Consequently, she states, “It is definitely our responsibility to do something with the knowledge we have.” And she intends to do just that. The trip changed her life ? now she wants to pursue a career in civil rights law.

Warhol Documentary Reviewed in NY Times

Accomplished free-lance editor, Juliana Parroni is teaching Communication Arts courses on editing and advanced video production this year. Her latest project, the editing of the first episode of a two-part profile of Andy Warhol for the PBS series, American Masters, was reviewed by the New York Times on September 1st.

The article can be viewed in full on the New York Times website, and   "Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film" will air September 20th and 21st on PBS.

Zaeske on C-Span

Department of Communication Arts Rhetoric Professor Susan Zaeske appeared on C-Span this spring when it aired the U.S. Capitol Historical Society’s Annual Spring Symposium, “Congress Confronting Slavery.” Zaeske joined prestigious historians including professors David Brion Davis (Yale), David Blight (Yale), and Michael F. Holt (University of Virginia) in the historic Russell Senate Building Caucus Room in Washington, D.C.

This symposium, which focused on the theme of Congress and slavery in the 1840s and 1850s, was the third installment of a nine-part series directed by Paul Finkelman, “The National Capital in a Nation Divided: Congress and the District of Columbia Confront Sectionalism and Slavery.” Zaeske’s paper was entitled “ ‘A Nest of Rattlesnakes Let Loose Among Them’: Congressional Debates Over Women’s Antislavery Petitions, 1835–1845.” Her expertise on congressional debates over the slavery issue stems from research for her 2003 award-winning book, Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women's Political Identity.

Hamel Donation Largest Personal Donation to Department Ever

The Communication Arts Department will be forever indebted to George and Pamela Hamel of San Francisco for making the largest personal donation to the Department’s endowment in its history. They have generously provided a $750,000 gift to the Department, which will be used to establish a named professorship in Communication Arts. In recognition of the fact that three generations of the Hamel family have attended the University of Wisconsin, this new faculty position will be identified as the Hamel Family Professorship. A national search will be conducted in fall 2006 and a new faculty member will be appointed as the first Hamel Professor of Communication Arts.

George Hamel is a Communication Arts alumnus (BA, 1980), and he and Pamela have been long-time supporters of the Communication Arts Department and the University. Their generosity in making this donation earns the enduring gratitude of the entire Department. The legacy will be measured in the future teaching and research made possible by this splendid gift.