JMC:2400 (3 credits)
Iowa Stories & Lived Experiences (ISLE) is an intensive multimedia workshop offered in the summer that gives students real-world experience in collaborative journalism. The immersive format of the workshop allows students to focus their energy on one project while producing portfolio-quality work.
During the first half of the workshop, students are embedded in a select Iowa community to document its stories and explore its connection to a central theme. The second half of the workshop is spent in production and post-production as students edit, collect data and build upon their visual storytelling skills to create a multimedia project.
The workshop incorporates photography, video, audio, emerging media, and data visualizations–culminating in a final screening of student work. Students are admitted by application only.
Next opportunity to participate?
What's it like?
Watch and listen to reflections from students who participated in the 2025 ISLE workshop.
The project explored the cultural, economic, and political currents that shape the lives of African immigrants in eastern Iowa.
Student work
Where the River Bends
We explored the multigenerational stories that connect past and present, showing how today's residents maintain and reinvent Muscatine's history as living legacies. The completed project will premiere at FilmScene in Iowa City on April 3, 2027.
Found in Translation
The inaugural workshop focused on exploring the cultural, economic, and political currents that shape the lives of African immigrants in eastern Iowa. The completed project premiered at FilmScene in Iowa City on Sept. 13, 2025 in partnership with the African Festival of Arts and Culture.
Get hands-on experience while earning course credit
Awards
Found in Translation
- Hearst Journalism Awards
- 2nd place in the Multimedia Team Enterprise Story Competition
- AEJMC Festival of Visual & Interactive Media
- Bronze winner for student multimedia
- National Press Club
- Honorable mention in the Pamela Tobey Award for Excellence in Visual Storytelling
- College Photographer of the Year
- Award of Excellence in Multimedia: Online Storytelling
Where the River Bends
To be announced
Questions?
