Wiley College to Establish a New School of Film and Drama

Wiley_College_sealWiley College in Marshall, Texas, has announced that it is establishing the Nate Parker School of Film and Drama in the fall of 2016. Nate Parker is the writer, producer, director and lead actor in the film The Birth of a Nation that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The film tells the story of Nat Turner who led a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831. Turner was apprehended and executed by hanging.

Fox Searchlight Pictures bought the world-wide rights to the film for $17.5 million, enabling Parker to make a substantial donation to Wiley College to fund the establishment of the new film school. The school will begin with a nine-day summer institute on the Wiley College campus for 30 high school students. Regular film classes will begin in the fall 2016 semester.

Wiley College, located west of Shreveport, Louisiana in East Texas, enrolls about 1,350 students. African Americans make up 85 percent of the student body. The 1935 debate team at Wiley College defeated the defending national debate team champion. The story was told in the film The Great Debaters starring Denzel Washington.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

A Strategy for Integrating Artificial Intelligence at Historically Black Colleges & Universities

For faculty in higher education, creating a generative AI policy for usage in completing assignments is creating somewhat of a confrontation of ethics and substitutional learning.

Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers

Each week, JBHE will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week’s selections.

Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

Higher Education Gifts or Grants of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

Featured Jobs