Visual Literacy Forum—Project Vis
Mission Statement
Project Vis, a multi-year initiative sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks to enhance the ability of faculty and students to create and understand visual media and to increase visual literacy throughout the campus community. Through Project VIS, funding from the Mellon Foundation supported the development of the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) and the Program in Media and Film Studies, two central homes for visual studies on campus, as well as the Visual Literacy Forum, which supports visual literacy across campus through a range of workshops and programming.
In its final year of Mellon funding, Project Vis is excited to join the CLTL to support faculty work both inside and outside the classroom on visual material and visual literacy. Project Vis seeks to enhance the ability of faculty, staff, and students to create and understand visual media, and to increase visual literacy throughout the campus community.
Project Vis promotes:
- a network for faculty teaching courses with visual content and otherwise engaged in visual studies
- faculty and staff collaboration with external specialists to supplement our own expertise
- partnerships with other institutions and organizations
- faculty and staff development and student learning opportunities that build on existing strengths, to encourage and expand visual media and literacy
- support for students as they transfer and apply their visual knowledge across courses and disciplines
- the integration of visual literacy in the context of Skidmore’s Goals for Student Learning and Development
- the development of a mechanism for assessing visual literacy
Steering Committee
- Paul Benzon, Project Vis primary investigator; visiting assistant professor of English and media and film studies; and associate director, media and film studies
- Jordana Dym, professor of history director of the Documentary Studies Collaborative
- Kristie Ford, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Leadership, Teaching and Learning
- Katie Hauser, associate professor of art history and director of the Media and Film Studies Program
Visual Literacy assessment
During the Project VIS grant period (2014-2018), Advisory Board members and other interested faculty developed two rubrics for evaluating student work in relation to visual material: one related to the analysis of visual objects and one related to visual communication through PowerPoint slide presentations. We hope that with these tools in hand, faculty across the disciplines will be more informed and better trained to assess visual analysis and visual communication in their courses and thus more fully empowered and encouraged to teach these vital skills. As with all rubrics, these rubrics can also serve as a basis for conveying the fundamental elements of effective visual communication.
Resources
Project Vis works closely with the MDOCS DocLab to provide a range of support to faculty and staff projects incorporating visual material, including workshops and classroom support for visual media software, one-on-one consultations on video production and storytelling, and technical and institutional support and guidance for innovative courses incorporating visual media production.