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Writer's pictureDesoni Cooper

Behind the Scenes: Warren Schlesinger

Desoni Cooper, Documentary Studies and Production with a minor in Finance, FLEFF blogging intern, Brentwood, New York


Warren Schlesinger, Director of the FLEFF Fellowship Program and Associate Professor at Ithaca College, was encouraged to engage with graduate students from all backgrounds at the festival.


"We're not just bringing in students with backgrounds in the media... we're bringing in scholars from all disciplines so that they can be exposed to some of the issues that [FLEFF] is concerned with," Schlesinger says.


The FLEFF Fellowship selects between 10 and 20 students from racially diverse backgrounds, including African American, Asian, International, and so on. The search for these demographics is easy to obtain, as opposed to gender.


Over the years, the number of male enrollments has decreased since the program started back in 2004. Schlesinger explained how the program would like to involve more male participants in order to inspire men to teach higher education.


According to the National Center for Education Statistics, female students make up 56% of the population of the Higher Ed. Nonetheless, as far as faculty members are concerned, men still dominate by accounting for 41% in the fall of 2017. At Ithaca College, however, women do maintain higher demographics when it comes to faculty and staff.


As the director, Schlesinger is also active in organizing the 1-credit FLEFF mini-courses. He raised some concerns regarding recruiting students to take part in these courses. “Part of the problem is that they are a 1-credit block 2 classes... students are more reluctant to take them," says Schlesinger.


One of the mini-courses had been canceled because there weren’t enough enrollments. “One of the ways that we raise awareness of the festival is enrolling students in these mini-courses… in the hope that they will tell their friends about the festival.” When students are unwilling to enroll in a class, the power of word of mouth weakness which can have an impact on student involvement throughout the festival.


Besides these setbacks, Schlesinger continues to improve the quality of the Fellowship and to spread awareness on sustainability issues.

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