The Center for Ethics and Vanderbilt Visions have partnered to create a new project involving situational vignettes as part of the Visions program for the next academic year.
Vignettes are short video clips that would contain student-run skits about possible first-year experiences at Vanderbilt, focusing on the decision-making and identity-forming parts of being a freshman. The clips would be used during VUcept meetings as a way to stimulate discussion about the situations represented.
Directors at the Center for Ethics viewed some similar videos produced at Duke University and decided to bring the idea to Vanderbilt through collaboration with the Visions program.
These videos would be extra tools for VUceptors to use when spurring conversation among first-year students, said Nina Warnke, executive administrator of Vanderbilt Visions.
Those involved with the new project hope to base the clips off of personal stories and experiences from students. A mass e-mail was sent out earlier this week requesting such stories, and about 15 have already been received.
The Center for Ethics welcomes more student input. All identities will be concealed when the films are made, said Susan Schoenbohm, program coordinator for the Center for Ethics.
"(We hope students will discuss) a lot of ways to deal with these situations and let everyone personally choose how to handle them," Schoenbohm said.
The team working on the project aims to have a finalized story by the end of this semester and plans to begin work on a script in the spring. Possible scenarios for future vignettes would center on relations with faculty and parents and experiences in social scenes at Vanderbilt.
"Talking about controversial issues is kind of a skill, and we are hoping this skill can begin to develop in the Vanderbilt Visions program," Schoenbohm said.