Animas Hall’s Faculty in Residence put on the first part of their Welcome to Your Life series with a student film showing in Animas Hall Thursday night. Michael Dichio, Animas Faculty Resident, was in charge of the coordination of the series which has speakers come throughout the semester covering a variety of issues and entertainment.

“It’s not really lecture based, it’s more just like trying to share with students some knowledge that will help them in their lives” Dichio said.

This series is beneficial to anyone on campus; whether coming into college or about to graduate from college, Welcome to Your Life is beneficial to anyone on campus, Dichio said.

This event highlighted films made by students, with themes aimed at helping shed light on common problems which is geared towards helping anyone find their spark whether that be in journalism or studying the stars, Dicho said.

Fort Lewis is new to the Journalism and Multimedia Studies scene, and Stacey Sotosky is one of the professors on the forefront of this major.

Sotosky showed films she thought fit the series properly; a lot of student films were submitted but only 11 were selected, she said.  With a runtime of 40 minutes, the films were geared at showing students the culture of Durango as well as challenges they may face, Sotosky said.

Films shown were all shorts ranging from 2-5 minutes.  The pieces topics ranged from: mountainbiking, coping with chronic pain, to overcoming self doubt by running.

“In today’s world, I think any student would benefit from having the skills required to create and share engaging media stories.” Sotosky said.

Students are taught camera work, story telling, editing and a handful of other crafts to benefit their multimedia skills, Sotosky said.

Students in the program are able to diversify their technical skills in media.  All the while they are able to engage themselves within the dynamic creative landscape that is Durango.  

The Welcome to Your Life series is set to run all year in Animas.  It's next event is a talk from Dr. Paul Debell covering morals in politics called ‘Polarized Politics’ and is set to show September 28th.