The Pillars

Faculty Service Spotlight: Dr. Joel Billingsley
In an effort to honor the 110 enslaved Africans who were illicitly brought to the United States on
the schooner Clotilda in 1860, a team of professors is embarking on a historical documentary film
project including the arts and education. The oral history of their descendants, interviews with
historians, and a visual examination of historical documents will serve as the foundation of the
documentary. The arts will be explored through poetry and an art exhibit. An education curriculum
is in the development to provide educational tools for teachers to teach this history.
The film’s producing team is comprised of Dr. Joél Lewis Billingsley, producer and Associate
Professor at the University of South Alabama, Ryan Noble, director and Assistant Professor at
Spring Hill College, and Dr. Kern Jackson, co-producer and Director of African American Studies at
the University of South Alabama. As the filmmakers, we hope
to create an innovative approach to the descriptive depictions of the life that was left behind in
Africa, the trauma of being captured, sold into slavery, and “shipped” across the Atlantic, and
the heroic survival of enslavement in Alabama, through visual imagery that parallels the poetic
imagery of Cudjo Lewis’s “parables” and the retelling of the oral history by descendants and
community members. The film will be released in Spring of 2020.
CINS Faculty Teaching Spotlight: Dr. Joe Gaston
Dr. Gaston has been working with an educational mission team for the
past two years to help transform the Episcopal schools in the Dominican
Republic. Currently, the team includes educators from Nebraska,
Alabama, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. Dr. Gaston has recently
been working with Dr. Richard Carter, dean of the School of Continuing
Education and Special Programs, to establish a MOU between the
University and the Dominican schools. Aside from providing workshops for
Dominican teachers on pedagogical strategies, Dr. Gaston is also working
with administrators to assist with meaningful technology integration. Since
this is an ongoing project, the team is looking forward to accepting new
members who are interested in contributing to this important work.
29