After a successful international cultural immersion in 2020, Ball State Sports Link students will return to Cardiff, Wales, in Spring 2024 in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University. Sports Link faculty, led by Chris Taylor and Alex Kartman, will travel with 16 students to the capital of Wales for 12 days from late February through early March 2024.
Prior to the trip, students will research and collaborate with Cardiff Met students to develop stories to film during the immersion. This continues an on-going exchange of pedagogy, global sports production trends and virtual guest lectures and student connections.
HISTORY
In 2019, Ball State University and Cardiff Metropolitan University agreed to a five-year understanding which recognizes the mutual benefits of an educational partnership, which in part will lead to collaboration, opportunities, and faculty/student engagement.
In Spring of 2020, 12 students and three faculty members from the award-winning Ball State Sports Link program travelled to Cardiff, Wales as part of a cultural immersion. These students and faculty part in an immersive learning, global storytelling project to identify, develop and produce documentary stories on Welsh athletes.
While on the ground in Cardiff, for 12 days in late February to March, students worked together to capture footage, scenes, and interviews with the athletes. Upon return to the United States, students produced a 76-minute documentary, which premiered in June 2020.
The documentary aired on Ball State PBS, Comcast Indiana, ISC Sports Network in the United States. In the United Kingdom, the documentary premiered on FreeSports TV in over 18 million homes. Since premiering, Transatlantic Storytelling has garnered national and international awards, including a MUSE Creative and Design Platinum Award, a Silver Winner Telly Award, a Communicator Award, and a College Sports Media Award for Outstanding Program Series.
Learning Outcomes
This program is consistent with Ball State’s 2040: Our Flight Path, including undergraduate excellence and innovation with emphasis on international opportunities and globalization; and scholarship – of discovery, integration, application, and teaching.
Students participating in the Transatlantic Storytelling cultural immersion will have a life-changing opportunity to travel to Cardiff, Wales while telling award-winning stories on Welsh athletes and culture. This unique opportunity with a global partner allows the next generation of storytellers to focus on their craft and expand their skills in documentary filmmaking.
Specific areas of student advancement include, but not limited to:
- Advancing skills through hands-on production, editing, remote training and international guest sports media professionals
- Advancing skills to including producing and interviewing different nationalities
- Advancing critical thinking and problem-solving skills through international in-the-field production, technical and formatting
- Advancing understanding of sports media in the United Kingdom to include, but not limited to, live sports production collaborating with international students, feature package and documentary production, podcasts and social media
The ending words of the 2020 documentary guide our vision for Transatlantic Storytelling 2024: “Daw eto haul ar fryn,” which is Welsh for “the sun will rise and shine again.”