Our Esteemed Mentor Panel

In order to provide our HBCU team a varied array of assistance, we put together a great panel of mentors to facilitate the production and new media conceptualizing process.

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Bryan Carter is an assistant professor of literature at Central Missouri State University. He specializes in African American literature of the 20th Century with a primary focus on the Harlem Renaissance and has a secondary emphasis on visual culture. He has published numerous articles on his doctoral project, Virtual Harlem and has presented it at locations around the world. In the spring of 2004, he served as Professeur Invité at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne where he taught Digital Communications and Cultural Studies. Dr. Carter has also been one of the forerunners in the Department of English and Philosophy in the use of technology in the classroom where recently he has incorporated desktop videoconferencing, podcasting, Internet radio broadcasts, blogging and the micro-world called Second Life into each of his courses. Being a strong supporter of online collaboration, Dr. Carter actively connects his classes with those of colleagues in Sweden, France and at universities in the states. “Using digital communications helps to expand the world-view of my students in ways that, prior to the evolution of these tools, was more difficult. Students love it.”


John V. Pavlik is professor and chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where he is also director of the Journalism Resources Institute and coordinator for the Media Studies area of the Communication Doctoral Program. He is contributing editor for the Online Journalism Review. He is a former columnist for CNN.com. He is the former executive director of The Center for New Media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was also a professor. He is a former senior fellow of the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Previously, he served as the founding director of the School of Communication at San Diego State University.

He is the former associate director for Research and Technology Studies at The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. With Columbia University computer science professor Steven Feiner, Pavlik has developed a new form of documentary called the Situated Documentary, and has overseen the production of a series of Situated Documentaries using the augmented reality system they call the Mobile Journalist Workstation or MJW:

see:
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/projects/mars/mjwSd.html

Pavlik has written many publications on the impact of new technology on journalism, media and society. His most recent books are Converging Media (co-authored with Shawn McIntosh), published in 2004 by Allyn and Bacon, and Journalism and New Media, published in 2001 by Columbia University Press. His other books include New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives, 2nd edition published in 1998 by Allyn & Bacon. Pavlik has also authored more than a dozen computer software packages for education in journalism and communication. Pavlik's Ph.D. and M.A. in mass communication are from the University of Minnesota. He is a 1978 graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Regi Allen's works include a Planet Brooklyn (1997) video art series that won various film festival awards including The Community Choice Award for Best Experimental film, from the National Black Programming Consortium; he has also won Best Show Award, from Washington D.C.s Rosebud Foundation for his work on the video art-poetry documentary Voices Against Violence (1994) His collaboration on Sandy Wilson’s So Many Things To Consider and Jane Wagner’s Girls Like Us, were both selections of the Sundance Film Festival Short Film Series. Girls Like Us won Best Short for the series in 1996. Mr. Allen was awarded a twelve-month appointment as a Research Fellow of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, at Carnegie Mellon University. There he developed a multi-media campaign for media literacy that examines the power of images and imagery in pop culture.

Lett Proctor is an award-winning poet, essayist, book and film critic and Information Technology Project Manager who harnesses the power of the Internet to bridge gaps and foster community. In 1993, Miss Proctor founded GIRLFRIEND, a cyberforum for Black women. Using email discussion list technology, GIRLFRIEND connects Black & Black-identified women from around the world, cultivating friendships, catalyzing businesses and inspiring cross-country and international travel. Miss Proctor developed a hands-on curriculum in Internet history and fundamentals that was chosen by a Community Development Corporation in Washington, DC to help bridge the digital divide. Over an 8 week period in 1996, Miss Proctor taught underserved junior high and high school students, exposing them to an array of technology and terminology, from Gopher to HTML, culminating in web pages of their own design. In 2005, Miss Proctor founded Survivorslink, a grassroots coalition formed to meet the immediate and long-term needs of survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Leveraging blog technology, the coalition’s website disseminated information and provided a forum for the exchange of ideas, facilitating communication that galvanized people to action; whether volunteering at local shelters or leading convoys of donated goods and supplies.

Deirdre Scott has many years of education, design and program development experience with cultural institutions as diverse as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Cooper-Hewitt - The Smithsonian Institution's National Design Museum, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. She also consults with corporate and private clients.

Since 1997 she heads her own cultural technology enterprise, DesignPolice – specializing in technology and organizational development for arts and cultural enterprise. Deirdre is the creator of the Black animated super hero, Mint Powers. Mint was born while Ms. Scott participated in the beta design of the well-known virtual world, Second Life. Deirdre is an avid gamer and Blogger who is deeply involved in web technologies and she enjoys exploring virtual reality and immersive platforms. She is also a curator, exhibition and multimedia designer on projects such as the African Burial Ground Interpretive Center, New York, a federal commission for an interactive learning center. She was lead concept and new media designer for the Underground Railroad Experience at The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and Columbia University’s Institute for learning Technologies.

Deirdre was guest curator for three art exhibitions at The Studio Museum during the 1999-2001 seasons. Most noteworthy was the exhibition and book created and written by Ms. Scott entitled, “Passages, Contemporary Art in Transition.”

Other challenging multidisciplinary projects and positions have included teaching faculty: Exhibitions and curatorship at the New School University, NY; Executive Trustee of ArtTrust International - Berlin; Concept, product and internet platform development for TempleFlower - Hamburg and London; and Curator/Director of Aquamarine Sculpture Park, along New York’s Hudson River.

In addition to consulting, Ms. Scott presents widely about the challenges and adventure of new media and web technologies. She serves on numerous boards of directors and advisory panels to advance technology, environment, and cultural issues.