December 16, 2008. Project Rebirth, the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL), and Georgetown University have partnered to create an educational initiative to inform students about and to support research on the human response to the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. Project Rebirth is a nonprofit organization led by Imagine Entertainment president Jim Whitaker that is producing a documentary chronicling the re-development of the World Trade Center site and the recovery of nine people coping with the aftermath of 9/11. CCNMTL has recently launched a website – https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/rebirth – that provides project information and lists courses taught by leading figures in psychology, social work, nursing, architecture, business, English, film, and other fields at Columbia and Georgetown who will use the content in their classrooms.

Faculty partners from both universities currently have access to hundreds of hours of footage from the Project Rebirth film library. Their students will use a CCNMTL-created environment called VITAL (Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning) to view the footage in a secure, web-based environment that supports managing and annotating the video content. In addition to the faculty currently using the footage in their classroom, 14 others are preparing to teach the content in spring and summer 2009. The initiative’s goal is to capitalize on the power of close viewing and observation to create a deeper understanding of the effects of 9/11 and to put this understanding into practice in the community.

Columbia and Georgetown will work with Project Rebirth as they prepare to open the Project Rebirth Center, which will serve as a center for therapeutic, education, and training resources that focus on grief and trauma suffered by victims and first responders to major disasters. The Center is scheduled to open in 2010, the same year as the release of the Project Rebirth documentary.

Frank Moretti, CCNMTL executive director and member of the Project Rebirth board of directors, has worked closely with collaborators during the development of the Project Rebirth initiative.

“My colleagues at Georgetown and Columbia have responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to work with Project Rebirth’s unique content, and I thank my team at CCNMTL for helping to get these initiatives underway quickly and efficiently. We are all excited about working together to meet the urgent needs targeted by the Project Rebirth Center in collaboration with experts from both universities,” said Moretti.

Visit the Project Rebirth site to learn more.

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