The year is 1970 and Tusculum College students gather with area film enthusiasts in the newly built Annie Hogan Byrd Fine Arts Building to view the work of independent filmmakers from across the country. Little did those attending know that the Sinking Creek Film Celebration would in a few short years evolve into a internationally recognized outlet for independent film, as indicated in a document released to the magazine “Cinema Canada” by Kirwan Cox, Director of the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre in 1972, which stated, “Sinking Creek is a small stream of sanity in the hodge podge of monied ego. It was efficiently organized yet remained a very personal event,” said Cox. Cox at first only saw Sinking Creek as “an excuse to get out of Toronto and into the spring countryside of Tennessee”, but he discovered the dedication of the Tusculum and Greeneville communities to independent film, a strong connection that even today remains unsevered.

The history of film within the Tusculum community is rich in artistic importance, originating with the Sinking Creek Film Celebration, which was founded in Greeneville in 1969 by Mary Jane Coleman. The Sinking Creek Film Celebration originally catered to members of the independent film community in the southeastern United States, but quickly grew to be renowned around the globe as a haven for independent film as well as one of the last film festivals that didn’t exist only to grow larger budgets.

“When she started the Sinking Creek Film Celebration,” said Marilyn DuBrisk, director of Arts Outreach and Tusculum Artist–in-Residence,  “there were very limited opportunities for local independent filmmakers, and she was enormously successful,”
DuBrisk assisted Coleman with the festival, where she greeted film directors and other important guests of Coleman. DuBrisk says Coleman had a dynamic personality, which was essential to her success as the festival’s director. At one point, Coleman orchestrated a visit from the Australian Ambassador Sir Keith Waller to Greeneville in order to view artistic works by artists native and inspired by Australia. “Mary Jane never stopped at small things” said Mary Jane’s husband Nat Coleman in a retrospective on the life of Coleman.

Due to exponential growth in size and popularity, the festival migrated to Vanderbilt University in Nashville and remained Sinking Creek Film Festival until 1997, when the name was changed to the Nashville Independent Film Festival (the name was later altered further to omit “independent” from the title, thus leaving it in its current incarnation as the Nashville Film Festival).

Tusculum’s ties to Sinking Creek Film Celebration can still be seen today in the Tusculum Cinema Series, founded by Wes DuBrisk and currently directed by Dr. Tom Harlow an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Tusculum. “The Tusculum Cinema Series provides students with a throwback experience to when cinema was a staple of American life from the Great Depression through the 1950’s,” said Harlow. This experience can allow students to catch a glimpse of the excitement felt in the early ‘70s by participants in the Sinking Creek Film Celebration.
The Tusculum Cinema Series in its current incarnation shows six films per academic year and focuses on providing films of social or artistic merit to the community of Tusculum College. A member of the college’s faculty or staff sponsors each film selected within the series. These faculty and staff members expand the students’ understandings of the displayed film by providing introductory statements revealing each film’s premise.

The ever-evolving Tusculum Cinema Series has now progressed to featuring a yearly theme, which for this year is film within the genre of science fiction. Harlow states that his personal goal for the series is to expose the students to rarely advertised films, such as those he was exposed to during his time at the University of Georgia. “Being with people while they experience these films allows our collective emotions to be that much more intense,” said Harlow.  “All of us wanted that experience to translate from the film series of previous years.”

Suzanne Richey, Director of College Communications at Tusculum, stated in a previous release concerning Coleman’s retrospective documentary that the Nashville Film Festival is “…one of the longest-running film festivals in the country, This annual film event attracts enthusiastic film lovers from the region and has been praised by filmgoers and filmmakers alike for its unique combination of big city film festival atmosphere and southern hospitality.” Richey expanded upon the popularity of the festival further by stating, “With more than 215 films from 38 countries, numerous industry panels and music showcases, the Nashville Film Festival draws more than 22,000 attendees.” Richey further explains the reasoning behind originating the festival at Tusculum College by stating that “Coleman was not a faculty member at Tusculum, but she felt that Tusculum College was the center for Fine Arts for our community.” The Nashville Film Festival now celebrates its 41st year in operation due to the tireless efforts of a dedicated member of the Tusculum College community. Within the retrospective filmed for the Nashville Film Festival, Nat Coleman enumerates instances of Coleman’s dedication to the Sinking Creek Film Festival, “A fire of interest was lit beneath her and it wouldn’t go out,” says Nat Coleman.

As Tusculum students, we can find the same amount of enthusiasm for fine art in knowing that the Nashville Film Festival first saw light on our campus. Though this connection may seem vague and distant, in no way is it any less evident than when Greenevillians gathered alongside independent directors to celebrate films created in the southeast and their artistic merit. Even aside from the significance of Sinking Creek as a direct predecessor to the Nashville Film Festival, the work of Coleman and Tusculum students stands on its own merit. According to the “Why NaFF Matters” section of its website, where the NaFF credits itself as the second oldest film festival in the country, states that the Nashville Film Festival was “founded by Mary Jane Coleman in 1969”. One other mention of Coleman and Sinking Creek was found on NaFF’s website, which hails 2010 as the festival’s 41st anniversary.

Dr. Hanneken, photo by Brooke Wedding

Hanneken, new to the Honors Council, is not a stranger when it comes to the students of Tusculum within the Honors Program. “Honors students who have taken my course previously have left quite an impression when it comes to community service projects” said Hanneken. In fact, Hanneken encouraged and cultivated Honors students within her previous classes to excel above and beyond preconceived boundaries of the classroom. “Whenever I do something, I do it all the way, leaving no room for failure. Leslie Hanneken is a professor that understands that completely,” says Kirstie Gust, a sophomore Honors student.

This realization of student potential is what separates the Wellness courses of Tusculum College from similar courses at different institutions of learning. “The service project provides students with an outlet to serve the community through contributing six hours of social work” explains Hanneken. Hanneken plans to further distinguish the Honors course by applying student’s acquired information in the form of a research project and presentation, which will fulfill the requirements for the class’s Honors status.

Not all aspects of the course will differ from the regular Wellness course. Hanneken keeps the seven components of wellness at the core of each of her classes, helping students to look inward and identify the presence of emotional, social, spiritual, physical, intellectual, environmental, and occupational forms of wellness within their lives.

Hanneken also advises her pupils to seek wellness in their everyday lives, encouraging activities across campus. “Students will be presented with relevant experiences that apply to the course in their daily college experience,” said Hanneken. Hanneken further elaborates upon this point by relaying that “ the [Tusculum College Fall Fantasia] Health and Wellness Fair of last week was truly a great example of [Tusculum College’s] hosted events that relate to the theme of the course.”

Professor Hanneken referenced the Tusculum College Fall Fantasia on Thursday, November 5th. This event, hosted by Health Services, allowed students to have the option to participate in various assessments, as well as providing health and medical information free of charge.

Participation in events such as the Fall Fantasia Health and Wellness Fair are also supplemented by close participation in tandem with the Health Services Department of Tusculum College. “We work in conjunction with Connie Kretchmar-Sitz [Campus Counselor] and Diane Hensley [Health Educator]” states Hanneken. Hanneken also details other sources of health and safety information both inside and out of the Tusculum College community. “We have had representatives in affiliation with [both] Greene County Health Department and Greene County Coordinated Health speak with previous classes” said Hanneken.

Hanneken has used the Pioneer Safety Report,  generated by the Campus Safety division of Student Affairs, as a tool for her students who desire to obtain a greater sense of the health and safety within the atmosphere of Tusculum College. “The [Pioneer Safety] Report is a good source to let Tusculum students know their at-risk factor for incidents such as random acts of violence, car accidents, and the like,” says Hanneken.

The new Honors Wellness course, while in its post-developmental phase, is still settling into the curriculum of Tusculum. “The course will be offered initially in just block five, due to year to year departmental schedule fluctuation,” said Hanneken, who remains increasingly optimistic about the course’s future within the Honors Program curriculum. “We’re just getting our feet wet,” said Hanneken, “but any chance to engage and challenge students is valuable.”

Most texts required for these students during the course of a college career may include lengthy textbooks or dense writing guides, but the consensus throughout Living and Learning Communities is that The Glass Castle falls under the category of quality nonfiction.

The Glass Castle is a memoir of the difficult upbringing of Jeannette Walls and her siblings by an alcoholic father and mentally unstable mother. As a child, Walls and her family moved across Arizona, California, Nevada, and West Virginia. Walls details her adolescent struggles, as well as the relationship with her parents, in a calm and fact oriented method allowing The Glass Castle to read less as a memoir and more within the path of autobiographical fiction.

Billie Ann Pace, a staff member within the Academic Resource Center, recounts the use of the memoir with the Quest Living Community and its impact everyone involved. “[Students] are faced with difficult questions of perception, survival, and experience throughout The Glass Castle” said Pace, “and many of the questions don’t have simple answers.” Addressing these questions allows students to pursue the Quest cohort’s motto, “On a Quest for Success”, through the personal growth of empathetic understanding of individuals in situations similar to those of Walls’s adolescence.

Pace and Greenway's Quest Learning Group

Pace also praises the book for its ability to open up issues relevant within diverse aspects of study. Themes of environmental abuse, psychological development, and family relationships meld within the personal experiences recorded by Walls, and are opened for discussion through the use of The Glass Castle. “[The Glass Castle] sets tone through many avenues of thought” said Pace, and many of these intrinsic issues raised within the text coalesce directly with the civic engagement mission of Tusculum College.

Another aspect of the memoir relevant to the learning communities is Walls’s honest depiction of her parents and the problems stemming from constant resistance to provide basic physical necessities for their children. Students are able to assemble a range of adversities experienced by Walls throughout The Glass Castle and apply them to difficult situations within their own lives.

Heather Patterson, Assistant Professor of English, reveals how her class, the Quest cohort, applies Walls’s work to both scenarios. “My students are asked to write two essays,” says Patterson, “one invites them to apply a personal definition of family to the ways in which their families and upbringing have influenced the person they are today, and the second asks them to investigate the (often dysfunctional) relationships Jeannette Walls has with her parents in an attempt to understand the judgment we place on others and the boundaries of familial ties.” By expanding student focus past their own lives and backgrounds, Patterson uses The Glass Castle to expose a more empathetic viewpoint to members of the Quest Learning community cohort.

Patterson also helps her students to create a link to The Glass Castle through the mirroring of student experiences. “Currently, a little more than halfway through the memoir, the class has been examining ideas about resilience and redemption by holding up their own life experiences to those of the author” explains Patterson.

After discussion of the relation to student development and curriculum, Patterson holds no unrealistic ideas of “life-changing” developments for students. “I want my students to appreciate the guts it takes to pull oneself out of horrible, thorny situations, and that tenacity is one of the most important factors to becoming successful” said Patterson.

Pace also desires students to absorb a simple concept from The Glass Castle. “You really don’t know what people are bringing to interactions,” explains Pace, “It’s unrealistic to expect students to change their entire [view on] life because of one book, but anyone can learn from applying life situations to Walls’s The Glass Castle.”