DCC Professor Dives Into Summer Fulbright Project

Release Date May 17, 2007

Poughkeepsie/Venezuela – The day after Dutchess Community College’s graduation, DCC Communications Professor Camilo Rojas embarks on a journey to his native Venezuela under the auspices of a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at three Venezuelan universities and to create a documentary on Venezuelan artists.

Rojas, a Millerton resident, is chair of DCC’s communications and media arts program. He will teach at Cecilio Acosta Catholic University in Maracaibo, Venezuela, the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, and Lia Bermudez Art Center of Maracaibo at Maracaibo, Venezuela. Using the theme “Moving Image as an Act of Exercising Democracy as a Poetic Form,” Rojas will present a seminar for faculty at each institution on the creation of a communications and media arts curriculum, using DCC’s successful program as a model. He will then work with students at each school to create a video documentary with the same research, storytelling, and production techniques used by students at DCC.

For his own research and documentary project, Rojas will conduct a series of interviews with Venezuelan artists who were working in New York in 1982, the year Rojas also arrived in New York. The documentary will explore the impact the New York art scene has had on Venezuelan contemporary art.

Rojas has taught full-time at DCC since 1992. He has a varied background in painting, photography, film, video, and installation art. He holds graduate degrees in photography and video from Pratt Institute, New York, and has been involved in the production of documentary and fine art videos for a number of years.

Communications and Media Arts is DCC’s sixth largest program, and ranks fourth in terms of student retention. DCC’s highly structured communications program reflects the experience of a video production company. Students are given access to video equipment during their first semester when they begin working in teams to tell personal, dramatic stories. Throughout this four-semester transfer program, students write and produce both documentary and fictional audio and video projects, as well as pieces showcasing special effects for the moving image.

Central to the program is the need for students to gain understanding of the editing process in order to comprehend cinematic language. During the fourth semester, groups of students must produce a promotional video for a not-for-profit client. This project requires students to create an agreement, a budget, and a production schedule. Qualifying advanced students also have the opportunity to work in Learning in Progress, a two-semester course where they produce documentaries for television broadcast.

The Fulbright Scholarship program has been in existence for more than fifty years. The program’s principal purpose is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of the over 150 countries that currently participate in the Fulbright program. Recipients are selected quarterly by the J. William Fulbright Scholarship board, a 12-member Board appointed by the President of the United States. The U.S. Congress and contributions make the grant possible through funds that are appropriated annually from partner countries and the private sector.

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