As a student at FAMU, the top film school in Europe, my short film was selected for production and went into development with my group last spring. Inspired by a visit to my sister in a psychiatric hospital, the story followed two siblings confronting their co-dependence: “After a man puts his life on hold to support his sister undergoing psychiatric treatment, the two must get to the root of their co-dependence to set each other free.” While the school provided key resources, actors remained unpaid. With $400 (converted to Czech Koruna), I was able to fairly compensate our cast and support better conditions for the crew. I also used $150 to aid in costume design and provide meals during rehearsals. This funding was pivotal to the film’s quality and allowed me to take on both directing and executive producing—roles I’ve developed through a creative producing workshop at Maine Media and co-producing a peer’s thesis. These experiences reinforced that valuing people through investment directly improves creative outcomes.  This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Committee on Grants Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Dirk Eitzen, Department of Visual Arts

Owen and I worked alongside my Italian Professor and Advisor as a research assistant in his endeavor to write a nonfiction book based on events that occurred in 19th century Italy. What started out as transcribing passages (written in Italian) from books and creating multiple bibliographies, slowly turned into transcribing manuscripts which were written by historical figures—Bishops and Archbishops throughout the 1800s.  In this virtual presentation we will reference and include images of some of the books and primary sources we transcribed as well as dive into the historical background of the 1800s in general (before and after Italian Unification, and Freedom of the Press) and Gentile Urbino’s story. We also want to highlight the communication between Barzellotti and Mancini, and then about the conversion cases.  We will also highlight the different Archives he references in his research— where they are located, how he obtained everything, and the difficulties with it. This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Scott Lerner, Department of Italian and Hebrew Studies

Bill Hutson lived and worked throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa from the early 1960s before settling in 2005 as the Artist in Residence at Franklin and Marshall College until his death in 2022. Working in abstract painting and collage, his art was informed by his experience as an African American man and his travels, which took the place of formal training. Over the summer, I familiarized myself with Hutson’s work and some of the traditions he worked with and altered with his unique style, and key among them was his use of African architectural forms. With this foundation, and the guidance of Professor Mongia, I was able to build upon his existing Wikipedia page as well as his personal website in order to allow more of the world to learn and better understand his voice. This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Padmini Mongia, Department of English

We partnered with the Power Packs Project, a Lancaster-based nonprofit fighting food insecurity, to build a system that plans healthy, low-cost meals for families. The system extracts recipes from PDFs, uses AI to standardize ingredient names, compares different units of measurement, and applies an optimization model to create a 15-week recipe schedule that balances cost and nutrition. We mapped 157 recipes to a nutrition database and estimated costs using past invoices and price trends. The model adapts to changing food prices and updates easily when new recipes are added. To make the results practical, we developed a searchable website that lets staff explore recipes by ingredient or category and generate optimized meal plans on demand. This tool supports real-time decisions that help the organization provide nutritious, affordable, and varied meals to the community.   This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Christina Weaver, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Technology, machines, and AI impact nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Yet, computing ethics knowledge remains largely inaccessible, especially to non-computer science students. To address this, we designed an inclusive, interdisciplinary course on computing ethics and pedagogical principles. As part of this course, students (N = 21) partnered with seven non-computer science faculty to co-create a computing ethics module for each of their courses. Building on the course’s diverse content, students shaped the learning experiences of future students through the successful co-creation of curricular materials. Student reception of our course was overwhelmingly positive, though some students noted that responsibilities were not balanced with faculty. Through our novel approach, a broader range of students will have access to critical knowledge affecting their daily lives. By teaching students how to teach others, our approach expands who engages with computing ethics and helps democratize knowledge about technology and its social and ethical implications.  This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Willie Wilson, Department of Computer Science