WMU News

Two WMU video programs win national awards

June 3, 1997

KALAMAZOO -- Two Western Michigan University television programs created through the Office of Video Distribution/EduCABLE have won 1997 Videographer Awards, earning national recognition for excellence in special events videography.

"The Pot That Would Not Break" earned an Award of Excellence in the human rights category while "The Yoga of Sound" received an honorable mention in the instructional/religious category. Both programs were created for EduCABLE, the cable television system owned and operated by WMU.

This year's national competition drew 1,890 entries from 42 states. Judges selected the Award of Excellence winners based on work that was produced, shot and edited in an exceptional manner.

"The Pot That Would Not Break" was co-produced by Frank R. Jamison, WMU professor of instructional media and manager of EduCABLE, and Paula Wissing Jamison, a graduate student in WMU's occupational therapy program.

The husband-and-wife team have been longtime activists for Tibetan human rights. Based on the award, Frank Jamison was recently interviewed by Voice of America for a report that was broadcast in Tibet and India.

Their award-winning program features an interview with Palden Gyatso, a 51-year-old Tibetan refugee monk who only days before had been exiled from Tibet after nearly 33 years of imprisonment. During the interview, the monk relates his experience of torture and forced labor in Chinese prisons in his home country.

The interview was conducted in Dharamsala in northern India, the location of the Tibetan government-in-exile, during Frank Jamison's sabbatical work with Tibetan refugees in 1992-93.

"The Yoga of Sound" was co-produced by Jamison and Wes Knollenberg of Hickory Corners, owner of EcoVision, a producer of video and World Wide Web site material. It features a blend of traditional Indian classical music as well as Western music and interview segments that center on the life and works of Father Bede Griffiths, a Benedictine monk who was living in India at the time of his death in 1993.


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