I'm not sure where my personality is on the spectrum of "Laid-back" to "Extremely Intense." The more I think about it, the more I think I fluctuate between the two. I always used to think of myself as a very laid-back, easygoing person. I went with the flow and didn't get uptight about very many things. I wasn't a wallflower but I wasn't the kid standing up on the lunch table making a scene either. When I moved to the States, I had something of a personality shift. I became the wallflower. I didn't want anyone to notice me for fear of... well. For fear of lots of silly things. I became more confident during my senior year, but I still would rather have blended into the wallpaper than draw excessive attention to myself.
As I go through college I seem to be changing even a little more. I will never draw unnecessary attention to myself. I still have an irrational fear of talking to people I don't know (which is something of a problem, considering my career choice). But if you know me, and especially if you know me well, you may have seen me get passionate or intense about something.
I'm passionate about my faith. About theatre. About faith and art and how they intertwine. About telling stories. About relationships. See? Over half those things I've only just discovered in college.
So. In the theme of storytelling, and also in the theme of faith and art, read on.
Among the things I'm involved in, I'm the Academic Representative for the Division of Communication in the IWU Student Government Association (SGA). Basically, I act as a liaison between people in my division and student government. Last semester, during one of the assembly meetings, we discussed IWU's media policy.
Now, every student at IWU signs a contract before coming to the school by which they agree to live by certain rules and standards. These include abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, sexual activity, (dancing, back when I signed it - since removed), etc. One of the things on the "abstain from" list is R rated movies. So everyone knows this about IWU's media policy, but I realized that I had never actually read the entire policy. I turned to the handy dandy student handbook (last PDF file on the page) and investigated. And was not any less bothered by the policy after having read it.
If you're curious about my response to it, I wrote a letter to the editor about it that was printed in the Sojourn in November. You can read it here.
If you don't want to read the whole letter, suffice it to say that I do not believe there should be any such thing as an R rated movie policy. So, leaning on SGA as a source of legitimacy, I started meeting with people and trying to do something to bring about some change.
In the letter I wrote, one of my suggestions is that we, as professors and students on this campus, watch more movies together in community and have discussions on them. This community is a safe place. Students are surrounded by professors and mentors whose sincerest wish is to see us grow both in our knowledge and in our faith. Here we are surrounded by people who truly care. There's a "safety net." This will probably not be the case for most people after leaving IWU. We're going to graduate and go off to face life in the "real world" in a few short years, where there are no safety nets and the primary goal of everyone we meet will not be to facilitate our growth and learning.
Here is the place to confront difficult things. Now is the time to discuss things that might make us squirm a little. Here in the midst of comfort, give me the discomfort. Don't shield me from things while I'm here where I can start learning how to respond. I'll be left standing in the hail without an umbrella after I graduate.
To my delight, our Communication Division Chair started a film colloquium this semester, dubbed "CinemaCom." It's mostly for Communication majors, and we're doing just what I suggested be done - watching films in community (that may or may not be rated R) and discussing them. It takes place most Thursday nights at 9:15 in Elder Hall. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to attend every night myself, though I've tried to encourage others to go. Apparently I haven't been very successful, however, because the turnout of theatre majors has, I understand, been rather abysmal. So, today, I got passionate. I emailed all my fellow majors and said, to quote myself:
"Some of you know I'm the Communication Division Academic Representative for SGA. Some of you also know that last semester, I started pushing for the IWU media policy to be changed because I think it's censorship and it's unjust to deprive college students of the learning experiences that can be found in movies that happen to be rated R. One of my suggestions when trying to push this issue was that we as students and professors watch more movies in community and get together to discuss what we've seen and understood. CinemaCom IS that. A film colloquium is what learning and discussion using media should look like. Regardless of whether or not you're passionate about film specifically, THIS is what we're here for."
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