Today’s world is increasingly visual. The English department's minor in film and visual culture gives students the critical tools they need to navigate our visual world. From film and television to photography and social media, we study images and the stories they tell about the cultures that produce them. Spelman graduates are engaged citizens whose degrees give them the skills they need to help change the world! FVC minors are sharp readers, viewers, and change agents who understand the visual and media environment. Whether moving on to the work world or to grad or professional school, the minor in Film and Visual Culture helps you begin your journey.
English Major, National Geographic Producer
Whether it’s in a sweat filled boxing gym in Brooklyn, an overcrowded orphanage in Ghana, a Santa training academy in Dallas or in a coven of new age witches, Lea Zora Scruggs enjoys unearthing impactful and entertaining stories. As an Emmy Award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, with a Masters of Science degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Scruggs has a solid editorial foundation and a history of long-form programming, digital video, field producing, production management, shooting/editing, investigative reporting and breaking news coverage.
Scruggs has worked as a documentary executive for William Morris Endeavor's Film 45 production company, she served as a reporter, producer/director for Vice Media’s Vice News Tonight, an on-camera host for BuzzFeed, a field producer for National Geographic Studios and a freelance reporter/producer for various outlets including the Village Voice, Quartz, Tina Brown’s Women in World summits, T-Brand Studios and Radical Media.
"Since graduating from Spelman, I’ve traveled around the world for self exploration and to write/produce investigative documentaries for National Geographic, Radical Media, the New York Times and Vice. Going into college, I thought that I needed to study broadcast news to become a reporter. I was wrong."
"At Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, where I earned my master's degree in journalism, I built upon the education I received at Spelman. Having to report on a deadline and in communities where people looked more like me and less like my classmates at Columbia, I was able to unearth stories that many of them were “uncomfortable” doing. Learning how to shape a story, fact check, read and think critically about a source, unpacking a character’s voice or motive are just a few things that my classes at Spelman taught me."