The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts dedicated the Meade Digital Arts Lab on Feb. 19 in honor of Dr. Benjamin Meade and Jane Hunt Meade of Little Rock.
The Meades made a gift of $20,000 to ASMSA, allowing the school to purchase 10 27-inch iMacs and new software for the lab. Students will use the computers for ASMSA’s documentary film, graphic design, digital photography and journalism classes as well as the ASMSA yearbook and The Muse, the school’s student literary magazine.
Benjamin Meade has been a documentary filmmaker for more than 20 years. He and his wife, Jane Hunt Meade, are owners of Arkansas New Media, LLC and Corticrawl Productions in Little Rock, where they produce documentaries.
Benjamin Meade was influential in the development of the documentary film course at ASMSA. He helped get the documentary class off the ground by donating seed money and equipment in 2007. He later taught the course for a semester in fall 2008 with James Katowich, an ASMSA instructor who started the documentary film class and continues to teach the course.
Meade said he became interested in the school while serving on the board of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, the organization that oversees the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
“I was really impressed with the school,” Meade said. “I went to commencement in 2007 and met (former ASMSA director Dr.) Janet Hugo, and we became really good friends. That was when I got the idea of starting a documentary film class at the school.”
Meade said he decided to donate the seed money and equipment if the school could provide the computers for the class.
“I said let me help with that. Even if the kids don’t go into film or the arts, even if they’re in business, they gotta know how video works,” he said.
He later married Jane Hunt Meade, an Arkansas educator, and moved to the state in 2011 after retiring from Avila University, a liberal arts college in Kansas City, Mo.
Meade said that he and his wife decided to make the donation for the lab because they felt it was important to help provide ASMSA students the best experience they could have in the class. While his previous donation helped bring the documentary film class to life, he said he and his wife’s recent donation was important to keep the program going strong.
“A lot of times people get behind a project and then the project dies or falls through the cracks because the people have left or no longer work with it,” he said. “We’re going to stay behind it as long as we can. … It’s something that we started and want to keep going. When I started, I never intended for it to be a one-shot thing. This is something that both of us truly believe that we have to keep alive because it’s a great teaching tool.”
Katowich said the new equipment and software have several advantages, both within the classroom and outside of it.
“First off, it’s incredibly generous,” Katowich said. “… It really helps in my vision of the class that uses documentary filmmaking in a way for students to find value in their home, state and the communities that they might have previously seen as a place from which to escape.”
Katowich said the new equipment gives the school credibility among the students.
“It communicates to the students that the school values the class. Having the equipment is a measure of how the arts fit into the scheme of the school,” he said.
Katowich said the new software and computers, which were installed in January, allow students to produce more professional-looking films, including working in high definition.
Fred Zipkes, the photography and graphic design instructor, said the new computers are a large upgrade in speed and the monitors provide a brighter, clearer working environment.
“We are always very fortunate to have the support of friends of ASMSA to ensure students have access to extraordinary opportunities,” said Corey Alderdice, director of ASMSA. “From science to the arts, we want to make sure that ASMSA is an incubator of ideas. This gift, in particular, provides access to opportunities within documentary filmmaking.”