Backpack Journalism at Creighton University is a collaboration between the Theology Department and the Journalism, Media, & Computing Department. It came about because of a theologian interested in social justice and filmmaking and a journalist and an artist interested in filmmaking and social justice. Each summer, a small group of students travels to a community in search of a story. Led by professors Dr. John O’Keefe, Tim Guthrie, and Carol Zuegner, the students immerse themselves in the communities, interviewing, filming, recording, and writing. When they return to Creighton, they take the stories they have collected and develop them into a short documentary film. The Backpack Journalism documentaries have been accepted at several film festivals, including the Omaha Film Festival. The class has traveled to such far-flung places as the Dominican Republic and Uganda. In 2014, they will head north to Bethel, Alaska. For more information or to apply to participate in the Alaska 2014 project, contact Dr. John O’Keefe (jokeefe@creighton.edu) or Dr. Carol Zuegner (carolzuegner@creighton.edu).

Backpack Journalism at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska uses new media tools and relatively inexpensive video equipment to produce documentaries about people in developing countries and marginalized societies. The project is a collaboration of Creighton University College of Arts and Sciences’  Departments of Theology and Journalism, Media & Computing. Led by theologian-documentary filmmaker John O’Keefe, visual artist-filmmaker Tim Guthrie and journalist Carol Zuegner, the professors work with a group of students in a five-week summer immersion course to produce mini-documentaries as well as blogs and other multimedia content. best backpack highbankerThe teams have filmed stories in Uganda, the Dominican Republic and rural southwestern Alaska. backpack growtopia

The 2016 project is set on the border between the United States and Mexico in Nogales, Arizona. Students in the course earn six credit hours in theology and journalism while experiencing for a short time life in a challenging part of the world. The course includes a filmmaking bootcamp, two weeks immersed in the place and two weeks to produce a rough cut of the film. The films — Esperanza, Mato Oput,  Wer Uganda, Mother Kuskokwim — have won awards or have been screened at national and international film festivals.backpack highbanker Bearing witness is what journalism does at its best, telling the stories of people who are often marginalized or ignored. pechino backpackAnd bearing witness also gets to the heart of the Jesuit call in our time to “go to the margins” of society through service and action.mokona backpack

Bearing witness through journalism and media Journalism, Media & Computing 2500 California Plaza | We live in an information-rich society where those who have the knowledge and skills to discover, present, visualize and process information will lead the way. Creighton’s new Department of Journalism, Media and Computing is a cutting-edge, forward-thinking department that prepares graduates for success in this information-rich world by melding programs in Journalism, Graphic Design and Computer Science.gw2 backpack straps The JM&C curriculum is designed so that basic courses and collaborative experiences with faculty provide a strong foundation in writing, design and programming. Within the majors and tracks, students build on this broad understanding to specialize in majors in Journalism (with tracks in Advertising, News, and Public Relations), Graphic Design & Media (with tracks in Graphics Design and Multimedia & Photojournalism), and Computer Science & Informatics (with tracks in Computer Science and Digital Development).

The Department of Journalism, Media and Computing is committed to providing students with the ethical foundation, latest tools and methodologies, collaborative learning experiences and opportunities outside the classroom to apply their knowledge and skills. The Center helps to sponsor Creighton’s Backpack Journalism project. This project is a joint effort of the Departments of Theology and Journalism, Media, and Computing. The specific goal of the Backpack Journalism initiative is to explore the Church’s mission in the world through filmmaking.To date the project has produced four films, one about the Church in the Dominican Republic, two about the Church in Northern Uganda, and one about spirituality and climate change among the Yup’ik people of Southwestern Alasaka. Today part of our backpack crew will be traveling 17 hours to D.C. to present "El Deportado" at the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice 2016. Follow @cubackpack on snapchat for updates!We Make Anything Possible.

Thrive on a campus known for academic excellence.The spring Kripke Symposium will involved numerous scholars, presenting a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives that address diverse visual ways in which the sacred is communicated. The following papers will be presented at the symposium: The symposium will take place in the Harper Center room 3028. The symposium is free and open to the public. The Unfinished Agenda: Womanist Contributions and Struggles for Inclusion in the Churches Sister Jamie T. Phelps, O.P. Ph.D. will deliver the ninth annual Women and Religion Lecture in support of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Creighton University. Listen to her lecture here. Sr. Phelps is Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies of Xavier University of Louisiana. She has edited two books, Black Catholic: The Challenge and Gift of Black Folk and Stamped in the Image of God: African Americans as God’s Image in Black, and has published more than 50 theological articles on issues of the mission of the Church, evangelization, inculturation, Christology, and spirituality.

Sr. Phelps believes in developing institutions to ensure the on-going growth and development of theology and ministry in the Black Catholic Community. She was a founding member of the Washington-based National Black Sisters Conference, a major consultant for the founding of The Institute of Black Catholics Studies, the founding director the Catholic Theological Union’s Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program which prepares Black Catholic laypersons for ministry, and the re-founder of The Black Catholic Theological Symposium, a national interdisciplinary theological society forBlack-Catholics holding doctoral degrees in theology and related fields. Sr. Phelp’s lecture will be given on Tuesday, March 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the Harper Center ballroom. The Nature of Humans and the Sanctity of Nature: Why the Dualism-Physicalism Debate Matters for the Environment Dr. Nancey Murphy will address the relationship between religion and science through a physicalist theory of human nature.

Nancey Murphy is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. A graduate of Creighton University (1973), she earned the Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley (philosophy of science) in 1980, and the Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (theology) in 1987. Her first book, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (1990) won the American Academy of Religion award for excellence. Most recently she co-edited Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will (2009). Other recent books include include: Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (co-authored with Warren Brown, 2007); Physics and Cosmology: Scientific Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil (co-edited with Robert Russell and William Stoeger, SJ, 2007); Evolution and Emergence: Systems, Organisms, Persons (co-edited with William Stoeger, SJ, 2007); and Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? Her research interests focus on the role of modern and postmodern philosophy in shaping Christian theology;

on relations between theology and science; and relations between neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Dr. Murphy’s lecture will be given Tuesday, March 15, at 7:00 p.m. in the Harper Center 3023. Listening to Child Survivors in the Aftermath of the Holocaust Dr. Boaz Cohen will present the fall lecture for the Kripke Center’s Holocaust Lecture Series. Dr. Boaz Cohen, is head of the Holocaust Studies Program at Western Galilee Academic College in Israel. He received his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and is a specialist in children’s memories/memoirs of the Holocaust and of how these accounts relate to our understanding of the Holocaust. He has published extensively in this area. Dr. Cohen’s lecture will be presented on Monday, November 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the Harper Center 3028. The fall Kripke Symposium will involve numerous scholars, presenting a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives that address diverse religious understandings and practices of health and healing in specific social, cultural and historical contexts.

Throughout history and across cultures and societies, religious thoughts and practices have been intimately intertwined with health and healing. The presenters at the symposium approach the association between health, healing, and religion informed by various academic disciplines within the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences: anthropology, history, medicine, nursing, philosophy, political science, psychiatry, and theology. Their papers integrate theoretical understandings with historic and current case studies from various geographical and cultural contexts and highlight implications for the practice of medicine, patient care, and religion. This symposium will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 27 in the Harper Center Ballroom with a keynote address by medical anthropologist John Janzen, known for his seminal work on healing and religion in Central Africa. The symposium will continue all day, Thursday and Friday, 8:30 – 5:30, with individual presentations in the Skutt Student Center 105.

A Little Good News for a Change: The Promises of Religious Environmentalism Professor Roger S. Gottlieb will inaugurate the Kripke Center’s new lecture series on Religion and the Environment. Listen to his lecture here. Roger S. Gottlieb is professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is the author or editor of fourteen books and more than 100 articles on political philosophy, environmentalism, ethics, religion, spirituality, the Holocaust, and disability. For the last fifteen years Gottlieb has concentrated on the political, ethical, and religious dimensions of the environmental crisis and on the broad social and normative connections between religion and politics. His anthology This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (2003) is known internationally as the first comprehensive collection on the topic. is recent work on religious environmentalism, A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet’s Future (2006) and Oxford Handbook on Religion and Ecology (2006) establishes him as the leading analyst of this unprecedented political, environmental, and religious movement.

Professor Gottlieb will deliver his lecture on Wednesday, October 6 at 7:00 p.m. in the Harper Center ballroom. The Catholic Church and Peace Building in the Democratic Republic of Congo Bishop Nicolas Djomo, President of the National Bishops Conference of the Democratic Republic of Congo, will address religion and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bishop Nicolas Djomo is Bishop of Tshumbe. He earned a doctorate in Psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1981 and has served the Church in Africa as a priest and bishop since. From 2002 to 2007 he was President of the Association of Episcopal Conferences for Central Africa (ACEAC). In July 2008, Bishop Djomo was elected President of the National Episcopal Conference of the Democratic Republic of Congo (CENCO). Since his election, bishop Djomo has launched several peace building initiatives within Condo and the Great Lakes region. Bishop Djomo is described as an “exceptional, charismatic man with amazing peace building experience.”