The Decree
since 1960 “of, by, andfor the Wesleyan community. ”
May 31, 2017
NORTH CAROLINA WESLEYAN COLLEGE, ROCKY MOUNT, NORTH CAROLINA 27804
Junior Sebastian Sikh was one of 32 athletes to take part in the NCAA
singles championships in Chattanooga, TN. Turn to page 3 for coverage
of tennis and other sports. si photo
‘Fiddler’ Cast
By Jessica Brown
Senior Staff Writer
“Fiddler on the Roof' was a resound
ing success with performers drawing
standing ovations from the more than
1.100 who attended three showings on
April 7 and 8 at the Dunn Center.
The musical, a collaborative effort by
The Wesleyan Players and Faith Chris
tian School, was directed by Danelle
Cauley, an instructor at both schools.
In Cauley’s words, "Fiddler” "tells
a timeless story with an important
message and it’s a much recognized
theatre classic.” It focuses on a poor
Jewish dairyman (Tevye) and his fam
ily. While living in Czarist Russia at a
time of mounting anti-Semitism, Tevye
tries to protect his five daughters while
instilling in them traditional values.
The first two performances went well,
but in the third performance, Wesleyan
student Aleksandr Shiriaev, playing
Fyedka, stumbled and appeared to be
favoring one leg. After the scene ended,
it was announced that he had sustained
an injury and would be going to the
hospital. The students wanted to go
on with the show so Fischer Vaughan
took on Fyedka’s role. Sainabou Jallow
thought that Vaughan did a great job.
“He had a script in hand, but he acted
and didn't just read out lines,” she said.
Trey Russell played Perchik as
well as an ensemble member. He said
costume changes were a challenge.
“Eve never done a show with costume
changes, so this was new,” he said.
"It seemed like during the show I was
either on stage or changing costumes.”
Savannah Flanagan played one of
the Russians and one of the bottle
dancers. She was nervous taking on
such a dance-heavy role. “I'm not a
great dancer,” she explained. “I got
to improve my skills and I’m proud
of how I did on the bottle dance.”
She added that this was her first time
playing a male character.
Many audience members loved the
bottle dance. Eleven actors put a glass
bottle on their head while executing
an elaborate dance. Many thought the
dancers had put Velcro on their hats to
keep the bottles attached, but there was
no trickery involved. The first and third
performances resulted in a few broken
bottles. Toni Tutt, one of the villagers,
revealed that the bottles were custom-
made from sugar glass by a teacher at
Faith Christian. A handful of rice was
poured inside the bottles to keep them
weighted, but the dancers relied on
skill to keep them from falling. They
had to attend more rehearsals than the
other actors to practice.
Two NCWC alumni, Katherine
Crickmore and Kaitlyn Davis, returned
to help out. Crickmore played Chava,
one of Tevye’s daughters. Tevye was
played by Jacob Smith and Golde, Te
vye’s wife, was performed by Victoria
Thompson. Both are Faith Christian
students.
Shows Collaborative Spirit
There were few technical difficulties
and, other than Shiriaev’s injury, the
show went off without a hitch. The set
gave off the vibe of a small village.
There were large stage pieces that
looked like houses and that could be
turned to resemble businesses. Tevye's
house could open and close, making set
changes quick and easy.
Stephanie Garrett enjoyed the play.
“The actors definitely put in some
serious hard work,” she said. “I had
friends on the stage, so I saw how hard
they worked.”
Cast members commented on the
Wesleyan Profile: Brian Moody
Brian Moody was enjoying a busy
mid-April day. He had met with his
professors about upcoming final exams.
He had attended an open house for
students interested in criminal justice
careers. And he had participated in a
meeting to discuss his role as director
of a Boy Scout camp set to take place
on campus in June.
In less than a year. Moody has
become a popular figure at Wesleyan.
It's not just his friendliness and sense of
humor. Many Bishops have been drawn
to Kate, his seeing-eye dog, which,
until retirement in May, led the blind
41-year-old Moody around campus.
Dean Ed Naylor has been impressed
with Moody, one of the few blind
students to attend Wesleyan in the past
decade. “Like other students, he's just try
ing to get the best education he can," the
dean said. “He really adds to our campus
in an interesting way. because a lot of
people aren’t exposed to others who are
different from them. The fact that Brian
is able to live his life like everyone else,
even though he doesn’t have eyesight, is
an inspiration to me and to most people
who come in contact with him."
Moody dislikes the label "handi
capped.” “That sounds like something
major. To most blind persons, it’s not a
handicap, just a lost sense," said Moody
who lost his sight in his early twenties.
Born in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Moody has lived in western North
Carolina since his family moved to
Lincolnton when he was in fifth grade.
A lover of camping and fishing, he
grew up a dedicated Scout.
During his senior year at West
Lincoln High School. Moody had con
sidered enlisting in the military. Then
a car wreck led to a change of heart.
Driving a 1982 Datsun 200 SX, he tried
to buckle his seat belt after the car was
in motion. Losing control, he broadsided
four pine trees and sustained a serious
knee injury. While his girlfriend, a
passenger, was not injured, her father,
the owner of the vehicle, was incensed.
"Boy, was her daddy mad,” Moody said.
“The car looked like a W.”
Rather than military service, Moody
entered the construction business
after high school. He was a multi-skilled
craftsman, performing electrical, roofing,
Jason Buel Excited to Begin
New Communication Major
Fresh from graduate studies at North
Carolina State, Jason Buel is excited to join
the Wesleyan community as the college
introduces a new major next fall.
Buel, 30, was hired as the first
faculty member in the new communication
department. Bom in Sarasota, Florida, he
was raised in Boone, where he attended
Appalachian State, earning a degree
in psychology and English with an
emphasis in film studies. He then studied
for a masters in English/film studies at NC
State and just finished his doctorate there in
communication, rhetoric and digital media.
He comes to Wesleyan with extensive
teaching experience. He has taught courses
in writing, film, business communication
and applied communication at NC State
great chemistry of the ensemble and
it showed when they pulled together
after Shiriaev’s injury. “We finished the
performance strong,” Russell said. “It
was nice having such a talented cast
and crew that could keep going even
with the challenges in the production.”
Flanagan agreed, stating the cast
was a team and a family. Having one of
them go down was scary and it affected
all of them, she said. “I’m proud of
how we pulled together," she said.
"Fischer picked it up and handled it
beautifully. I think it showed how close
we got to each other.”
and glass work for three years. He
specialized in commercial construction
in the Carolinas, while he pursued one of
his other passions, volunteer firefighting,
which he had discovered in his early teens.
It was in November 1998, while
working at a construction job in Green
ville, South Carolina, that Moody was
struck by a serious illness. He recalled
that his then-employer had brought
chicken plates from a local fundraiser
for the work crew. "I felt like crap,”
Moody said. “At first, I thought I had the
stomach flu or food poisoning because I
was so sick. It just came on that quick.”
Moody thought he’d feel better in
a few weeks, but by Thanksgiving, he
was weak, achy, still very sick. "I just
thought it was a virus,” he said.
He went back to North Carolina the
first week of December and remained in
the hospital for six weeks. He soon noticed
his vision fading. In a week it was gone.
The eventual diagnosis was
meningitis and permanent blindness.
Had the doctors been more
aggressive in the early stages of the
illness. Moody believes he would have
retained his sight. But he’s not bitter.
"I’m not mad about it,” he said.
Moody said that he’s become more
open-minded over the years. As one
might expect, he said, he experiences
life in a new way. Less judgmental
about the way a person looks or
dresses, Moody has befriended “folks I
wouldn’t have liked” in his previous
See MOODY pg 2
as well as schools such as Vance-Granville
Community College and Durham Tech.
The Decree conducted a recent email
interview with Buel about his plans for the
new major and his life outside the classroom.
Q. What about the NC Wesleyan job
appealed to you?
A. It seemed like a perfect opportunity
for me. I want to be at a small school that
emphasizes teaching, and I love living in
North Carolina. I also like the idea of getting
in on the ground floor of a new major, having
a hand in curriculum development, and
teaching a variety of courses across my discipline.
Q. Describe your teaching style.
A. I try to be a "guide on the side” rather
than a “sage on the stage.” Sure, I know
lots of things. But simply telling you about
things I know isn't terribly helpful to you.
Instead, I want to learn about your interests
in the course and guide you as you research
them for yourself. This approach can be
uncomfortable for many students at first,
because it means I'm not going to tell you
exactly what you need to know or give you
any easy answers. However, it will help you
improve as a researcher, communicator, and
critical thinker in addition to helping you
learn specific course content.
Q. What can a student expect to do in
a typical week of your class?
A. Students will encounter new ideas
through our assigned readings and videos
outside of class. You might demonstrate
your understanding of new material by
contributing to a class Wiki page or by
writing a blog post on a topic covered in the
readings. In class, I want us interacting with
one another as much as possible. Sometimes
this means class discussions. More often,
it means tackling small-group projects in
class. We might have a conceptual workshop
where we test the Emits of our understanding
of new ideas or a virtual scavenger hunt
where we track down examples of some
media phenomenon out in the “real” world.
We might debate a controversial topic raised
in the readings. We might craft our own
communication strategies in response to
historical conditions that others have faced.
As much as possible. I like to design activi
ties that give students room to be creative
and learn from one another.
Q. What’s the most important lesson
you've learned so far about teaching?
A. l)As much as I personally enjoy
nerding-out and listening to a good
90-minute lecture, most people would
rather have a root canal.
2) Shame and fear structure an awful
lot of students' actions (or lack thereof)
in class. We have to make room for each
other to take risks and make mistakes if
we want to learn. If we're not occasion
ally failing, we're not really learning.
Q. Describe your dissertation.
A. My dissertation is called “Whose
Screens? Our Screens!: Digital Documen
tary and Social Activism.” It’s an examina
tion of amateur and independent video
practices in the context of social media and
contemporary social movements. It looks at
how digital media technologies complicate
what we know about documentary film/
video and political communication.
Q. What will be the focus of your
future research?
A. In general, it will focus on how
digital media practices shape political
expression and the democratic exchange
of ideas. What new potentials do they
open? What new limits do they place on
us? What old patterns do they recreate?
In addition to revising my dis
sertation into a book. I've got several
projects in various stages of develop
ment: a book chapter on amateur video
practices in Canada's Idle No More
movement, a journal article on the use
of networked digital media around
Moral Monday here in North Carolina,
and a conference paper on citizen
journalism connected through the
#NoDAPL hashtag. Early next year, I'll
have an article out in “Public Culture”
about alternative modes of archiving
developed during Occupy Wall Street.
In the past, I've collaborated with stu
dents and faculty to produce multimedia
showcases (websites, interactive video
installations, curated screenings, etc.)
to share our research with the public.
I hope to continue such collaborative,
public-facing research in the future.
Q. Try to make connections between
your research interests and your work
with students in the classroom.
A. At the heart of my research are two
questions that are central to the classroom:
How do different communication practices
facilitate the free exchange of ideas? How
can communication help to build com
munity? Effective communication isn't just
about having a “good” idea or the “right”
answer to a problem. It's about packaging
your ideas in a way that not only makes
sense to other people but also makes them
feel that you share common interests—that
your idea will benefit both of you.
Any good communication course will
not only give you practice doing this, but
it will also give you space to critically
reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of
other paths you might take as you shape
your message. In some courses, that
might mean analyzing the word choice of
a political campaign speech. In others, it
might mean breaking down a scene from a
movie shot-by-shot to understand how the
camera placement, set design, and lighting
contribute to its overall impact on viewers.
In still other courses, it might mean collect
ing data on a Twitter hashtag to understand
what factors impact its spread. In each
case, what we're doing in the classroom is
effectively a smaller-scale version of what
I'm doing in my own research.
Q. In the past, communication has
often been called a "jock major." Argue
against this impression.
A. Like any major, it's exactly as serious
and intellectually deep as you make it. In
terms of methods, we draw on work in his
tory, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and
political science. In that sense, we're similar
to most humanities and social science majors
in terms of the workload and type of work
you can expect to be doing in your classes.
The “jock major” stereotype, like most
stereotypes, has little to no basis in reality.
(And "jocks” can be serious students, too!)
Q. Describe your ideas for building
the communication major at Wesleyan.
A. I see the major focusing on media
history and emphasizing a strong liberal
arts foundation in communication theory.
I want to develop courses that blend
theory and practice to give students
a broader understanding of problems
in communication so that their skills
will remain useful to them long after
graduation. To that end, centering media
history and communication theory
will allow students to anticipate trends
by understanding not just our present
media environment but also the forces
that shape it—and the forces that will
continue to shape the media of tomorrow.
Q. What classes will you teach next fall?
A. I'll be teaching COM 195: Film
Analysis, COM 200: Introduction to
Mass Communication, and COM 495:
Documentary Media.
Q. What courses would you like to add
to the communication curriculum as it's
now constituted?
A. I'm interested in adding courses in
political communication, the history of
media technologies, and contemporary
media theory, where we can critically
examine the ways that media practices
shape our world. My background is
in film studies, so I also anticipate
offering special topics courses in film
history—perhaps on topics like American
independent cinema, revolutions in world
cinema, North Carolina on film, etc.
Q. Imagine I'm a student still not sure if
communication is the right major for me.
Persuade me to give it serious consideration.
A. Listen: it might not be right for you.
See BUEL pg 2