Professors do 'something different' on leave
Clem Work will make documentary; Sheri Venema researches church

By Lacey Hawkins
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Tim Kupsick

Sheri Venema has been working on reading Montana newspaper articles as well as interviewing previous and current members of the Church Universal and Triumphant.

When on leave, University of Montana journalism professors aren’t grading papers, preparing lectures or presenting them in front of classes. Instead, it’s a time “to recharge your engine and do something different," said Professor Clem Work.

He will be on sabbatical Spring semester working on a documentary based on his book “Darkest before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West.”

Sheri Venema, now on her first leave of absence from the School of Journalism, has been working on a project involving the Church Universal and Triumphant in Paradise Valley, Mont.

In the 1980s this religious group, based on a belief system that combines Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, came to Paradise Valley. The group was headquartered in Montana, and followers came from all over the world, said Venema, an associate professor.

"There was a whole lot of attention paid to this group and they attracted lots of news coverage."

Their leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, predicted that there would be a nuclear strike. At the time of her prediction, the Soviet Union was still in power and the Church Universal and Triumphant were "very much anti-communist," Venema said. Prophet’s followers therefore built bomb shelters to prepare for this prophecy.

Venema's research partly deals with the media coverage of this group.
"I think it is always good to study how the media covered an event after the fact," she said. "When you write on a controversial issue during the event, you are pressed to put stories out. I can now take a step back and see how they dealt with it in the heat of the battle."

Venema is also studying how the lives of the children who grew up in the church have been affected. At the time, they were quite young. Now that they are around 20, it is interesting to see how the church influenced their lives, she said.

"When you grow up in a fishbowl like that, it can have an effect on you."
Though Venema had known about the religious group from living in Montana, the idea for the research really evolved after she had a student who had grown up in the church, she said.

"I have always had an interest in the intersection of media and religion, and it really got me interested in exploring how the media had covered that church."

Taking a leave of absence provided necessary time to travel for interviews, said Venema. Aside from going to Paradise Valley, she has conducted interviews in Las Vegas, North Dakota and California.

The research project is funded by two grants: one from the University of Montana and one from the journalism school.

Venema's research will be beneficial when she returns to the classroom, particularly when teaching multicultural reporting, she said. The class evaluates how the media covers different minority groups in society, and this project will be helpful when discussing religious groups, she said.

Venema is also studying how to improve the journalism-school web page. She is the usual professor for online reporting, and because of this, she wanted to make "the page a little more dynamic."

She has been studying other web-based news organizations and will be working with New West in December to learn how to better develop the web page, she said.

Venema plans to continue her research on the church when she resumes teaching. "I'll just be working on it less," she said.

The preliminary idea is to complete the research by the end of next year and then write a book, she said.

"The writing will take some time though," said Venema. "I don't know how long it will take to finish the book, but I'm thinking a couple of years at least."

In the meantime, Venema will return to the journalism school Spring semester teaching online reporting and two sections of media law.

"I've really enjoyed this time of doing something different, but I think it will be good to be back," she said.

A documentary for Professor Work

Venema's return to the journalism school will be the beginning of Professor Work's semester-long sabbatical leave.

This will be the second leave for Work, who took a year-long break from 2000 to 2001 to do research for his book “Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West.” The Spring 2007 leave will also deal with the same research, but this time he will be helping to produce a documentary based on the book.

The working title for the documentary is "Jailed For Their Words," said Work. It will be a one-hour long piece about freedom of speech that will be produced so that it can be shown on PBS, he said. It will also be released on DVD for schools and colleges to use in teaching.

The documentary has already been started. The producer of the film, Gita Saedi, has already conducted some interviews, he said, including an hour-long discussion with Work himself.

"I'm pretty intimately connected with the whole operation," said Work. "I guess I'm wearing several different pairs of pants on the project."

Aside from being a source and helping with research, Work is also co-executive producer along with Jerry Brown, dean of the journalism school.

During his leave, Work will help conduct some of the many interviews for the piece, he said. The documentary team has already begun to generate a list of sources to interview, and Saedi will travel to New York and Boston over the break to meet with some of them, said Work.

"Those interviews fall into the category of talking heads, or experts is a nicer way of putting it," Work joked. The hard aspect of interviewing experts is that you must research their research before you can construct a detailed list of questions, he said.

The project will also include interviews with the families of some of those who were jailed in the early 20th century for sedition.

Because this documentary is being produced by the journalism school, it will be of huge benefit to the program, said Work.

"It will benefit us, if not in a financial way, in a way of the school's reputation, credibility and authority," he said.

Work also has other research ideas in mind, but they will depend partly on how much time the documentary takes, he said.

When he originally applied for the semester leave from the journalism school, the documentary wasn't a sure thing. It has now just become a "bigger thing on my plate," he said.

"The purpose of a sabbatical is to recharge your engine and do something different," said Work. "I don't have time to do research when I am teaching and grading papers."

Not having to prepare for a return to the classroom next semester has also provided Work more time to travel over the Christmas break. Work and his wife are traveling to Morocco for the holidays to visit their daughter who is studying there.

Work said they plan on visiting Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. While on vacation, Work plans on taking a lot of photos, as photography is one of his main hobbies. As for whether he will be working on any stories while he is there, that remains to be seen.

"There is always a journalist in me, and if I see a good idea or article worth pursuing, I may do it."

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