Project Rebirth

The Project Rebirth Educational Initiative represented a collaboration between CNDLS and Columbia University’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL). The initiative's goal was to unite people who are interested in studying trauma and recovery. It initially focused on the interview footage collected for Rebirth, a documentary film chronicling recovery following the trauma of September 11, 2001. The film was directed by Georgetown alumnus Jim Whitaker (C'90). Proceeds from the film fund the Project Rebirth Center, dedicated to helping professionals and volunteer organizations prepare for, contend with, and recover from traumatic experiences.

Through the center and the educational initiative, Project Rebirth intended to:

• Assemble responders, victims, educators, researchers, students, and professionals to share applied research on trauma and recovery 
• Link people to tools that provide assistance in the midst of disasters 
• Provide a space for victims, family members, and first responders to share stories and connect with one another.

CNDLS and CCNMTL worked together to design educational uses for the Rebirth footage. Plans called for the development of a social learning environment that would allow students, faculty, and community members to edit, tag, annotate, and share clips of the footage with one another and reflect on the footage through blogs and multimedia digital stories. Not only would this learning environment allow for explorations of themes such as trauma, narrative, memory, and recovery, but it would also enable research on aspects of student learning, including metacognition, affect, and empathy.

Several faculty members incorporated the footage into their teaching, including Randy Bass (English), Bernie Cook (Film and Media Studies), and Beverly Sauer (MSB) at Georgetown, and George Bonnano (Teachers College), Frank Moretti (Teachers College), and Kathy Shear (School of Social Work) at Columbia.