Cynematik

I love higher education. My seven years at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire were truly some of the best of my life. (Like the USSR, I was on the seven-year plan.) While I loved teaching at Mesa Community College, I always longed for the opportunity to take students to something beyond their second year. Now, to be honest, at MCC, we liked to push the envelope in our classes and take students to as advanced a level as they were willing to go. We had some terrific students who did wonderful projects. Passionate students are a blessing for any teacher.

So, I heard that LaVerne Abe Harris, a colleague at ASU-East, had gone to the Computer Graphics Technology School at Purdue University. We got in touch and I discovered that Purdue is a very active research campus. I started looking at the sorts of projects they were doing and it was quite amazing. Professor Harris shared that she had a research project about technology and spina bifida. Now, isn’t that something interesting to spend your life’s energy on?! I was quite impressed with everything they’re working on.

Her colleague Nicoletta Adamo-Villani has several projects about such things as deaf education, math and science education, a keyboard-controlled signing semantroid, keyboard encoding of hand gestures and automated fingerspelling. She even has two patents from her research work. She has an MS in Architecture from University of Florence, Italy and she is a certified animator and instructor for Alias. Prof. Adamo-Villani is an award-winning animator and graphic designer and creator of several 2D and 3D animations that aired on national television.

Sweeeeet. Wouldn’t it be fun to play in their sandbox?

The thing I really liked about their program was the opportunity for students to work on real-world projects of some significance. Like the fourteen-member student crew we took to Zambia to create the first feature film in the country, they have projects that give students the chance for hands-on, practical experience that makes a difference. I kept thinking about how amazing it would be to have a whole school with the sort of learning environment that supports and motivates students and inspires faculty, too!