Curriculum Vitae
cromwell@ohiou.edu
Education
Howard University, Washington, D.C. B.A. History Howard University Graduate studies, History Ohio University Athens, Ohio M.A., Ph.D. Telecommunications
Professional Experience
2012 Associate Professor Director, Public Media Graduate Program. Additional teaching responsibilities: Collaborative Media Projects,
Digital Archival Projects
2004-2012 Associate Professor Director of Studies, School of Telecommunications Honors Tutorial Program. Teaching responsibilities remain as annotated below.
1998-2003 Assistant Professor, School of Telecommunications Ohio University. Teaching
responsibilities have included: Introduction to Mass Communications, Telecommunications and Global Living, Documentary Genres, History of Prime Time, The African American Televisual Image, History of Broadcasting, Media, Culture, and Technology,Television Genres.
2001 Co-Producer, Interviewer intouch, half-hour series on the Arts. Co-Produced
program that focused on photographer Herman Leonard. Responsibilities included pre-production interviews, selection of graphic materials, selection of music,editing supervision. Produced by WOUB-TV.
1997-98 Co-Producer, Director of Interviews, Vanqui, an opera-in-progress. Responsible
for interview segments of opera’s principals including writer, John A. Williams, composer, Leslie Burrs, and lead character, Carmen Balustrade. Produced in conjunction with Urban Garden Films and Opera Columbus.
1996-99 Co-Producer, Principal Interviews The March: Memories of Gathering. Responsibilities included coordination of principal video unit, producer of
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Chicago interview segments. Conducted interviews including Nathan McCall,
Haki R. Madhubuti, and Minister Louis Farrakhan. Assisted in editing and proposal writing for the project. Produced under a $50,000.00 grant from the National Black Program Consortium. 1995-96 Instructor, School of Telecommunications, Ohio University, African-American-
Televisual Image, Introduction to Mass Media; Professional Options.
1995 Producer-Director, Carryin’ on the Tradition: Abbey Sings Billie, a performance documentary of singer/actress Abbey Lincoln. The program includes rehearsal, performance, and interview footage of Abbey Lincoln. Produced in conjunction with WNYC-TV, NY.
1994-95 Producer/Researcher/Writer, Jazz Meccas A Research/Development Project. Developed and researched and wrote a treatment for a six-part series on the social history of African American Jazz for public television under a research grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
1992-94 Associate Producer, Black Boy; A Biography of Richard Wright. Responsible for historic content, interviews, archival, and graphic materials. Line
Producer/Principal interviewer of the Chicago and New York segments of the film which included; Amiri Baraka, Ralph Ellison, Haki R. Madhubuti, John Henrik Clarke, Margaret Walker, and others. Produced by FireThorn Productions, Mississippi ETV Network, and the BBC. Program was Winner of
Southern Regional Emmy, Golden Cine Award Award. Aired on PBS and the BBC.
Fall 1995. Nominated by National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in National News and Documentary Competition in the Craft: Research, 1996.
1992 Instructor, Telecommunications Dept., Ohio University. Researched and
developed The African American Televisual Image which surveys the African American image portrayed on television, including series, movies, documentaries, specials, and advertising.
1990-92 Instructor, Afro-American Studies Dept., Ohio University. Taught the course Black Media, a survey course on the African American image as portrayed in American film.
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1989-90 Teaching Assistant. Assisted teaching graduate and undergraduate courses
in the Telecommunications Dept. Courses included; Introduction to Broadcasting, Professional Options, Survey of Media Practices, Qualitative Research, Television Criticism.
1988 Field Producer, The Death of Rhythm & Blues. Directed and interviewed commentators for lecture presentation at the African-American Historical Museum, Wilberforce, Ohio. Commentators included: Greg Tate, journalist, critic Village Voice; Nelson George, journalist, Village Voice, author of The Death of Rhythm and Blues. 1984-86 Producer/Writer/Researcher for Watch Me Move!, a one-hour documentary survey of African American popular dance forms. Responsible for conceptualization, research, interviews, archival film and music selection/editing, editing supervision. Produced in conjunction with KCET-TV Los Angeles. Program aired on PBS 1986-90.
1982-86 Producer, Wynton Marsalis Live! at Blues Alley, Broadcast on NPR; Jazz
Spots, Distributed. by Nat’l Black Program Consortium; Facets of Jazz: Audiobiographies, local broadcast; Art of the Improvisers: The Avant Garde, local broadcast; New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival Special, Broadcast by NPR; Carter Baron Blues Special, local broadcast; Jazz From
Ft. Dupont, local broadcast. Produced at WPFW-FM, Washington D.C.
1982-83 Program and Music Director, WPFW-FM, Washington, D.C. Responsible overall coordination of all broadcast activities including the on-air
schedule, remotes, program planning, grant development, establishing program guidelines, liaison to public radio stations, musical artists, distribution agencies, and record companies, and coordination of over 100 volunteer-programmers.
1979-92 Music Programmer, Produced two weekly jazz programs; Out of the Afternoon and Excursions, produced at WPFW, Washington (1979-88); Excursions, produced at WOUB, Athens, Ohio, 1988-92.
1976-88 Program/Production Consultant, Aetna Institute’s Saturday Academy Program, 1988; Analyst for NTIA’s Public Telecommunications Funding
Program, 1984-88; Writer/Researcher, KCET, for two proposed documentary series, 1984; Production consultant, Blacksides Productions, developed background for proposed documentary,1981; J.M. Productions, proposed historical documentary, The Spurgeons, 1980; Historical Consultant,
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Perspectives International, A History of the Traditional Black College, 1979; Research Consultant, CPB’s Minority Task Force, 1976.
1975-76 Senior Research Associate., Public Broadcasting Service. Responsible for design of an systemwide training program for minority engineers. Coordinated thedesign of interdepartmental program planning process. Designed and assisted in the
execution of a specialized audience promotion project with WETA-TV, Washington D.C.
1973-75 Producer, of Gettin’ Over, a 52-half hour television series from WNVT-TV,
Annandale, Va. Funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education. Duties included supervision of budget ($1.7 million), staff of 35 including film crew, four editors, and TV studio production crew; script supervision, production and editing supervision; coordination of eight-state ascertainment survey; liaison between PTV stations, USOE, and PBS. Series avaiable on PBS 1975-82. 1971-73 Associate Director, Office of Minority Affairs, National Association of
Educational Broadcasters. Co-directed office. Implemented systemwide research
on minority employment. Coordinated in-service conferences, regional conferences/workshops, national minority ascertainment survey. Assisted in preparation of presentation materials for congressional hearings. Edited systemwide minority newsletter.
1970-71 Associate Producer/Researcher, The Trial of Henry Flipper, Nebraska ETV. Responsibilities included; development of historical treatment for shooting script, archive/photographic research. Aired on PBS 1972.
1969-70 Research Director, for a four-hour series entitled, The Black Frontier, Nebraska
ETV. Duties included; development of historical research for scripts; archive and photographic research; site selection, coordination of recording original music score by Prof. David Baker and Indiana University Jazz Lab Orchestra. Aired on
PBS 1970-75.
Grants
2003 $8000.00 research grant Baker Research Fund, Ohio University
1994 $49,000.00 Research and Development Grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting toward scripting the concept of a series, Jazz Meccas, for public television.
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1984 $175,000.00 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting toward the production of a documentary, Watch Me Move! 1984 $3500.00 Research and Development Grant toward script development of a documentary for public television.
1983 $3500.00 grant from National Endowment for the Arts for the production of a twelve part radio series.
1982 $6500.00 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the production of a 52-part modular series for public radio.
1970 $10,000.00 Fellowship for the study of television production, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1969 $3500.00 Trustee’s Fellowship for Graduate Studies, Howard University.
Awards 1996 Special Congratulatory Proclamation, House Of Representatives of 121st General Assembly of Ohio, by Mary Abel, House District # 78, for Outstanding achievement in the field of telecommunications.
1996 Nominated by National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Craft: Research for News and Documentary Competition for Black Boy: A Biography of Richard Wright.
1994 Special Commendation, Faculty of School of Telecommunications, Ohio University.
1990 $1000.00 Provost Award, Office of the Provost, Ohio University, toward the development of the course, The African American Televisual Image.
1990 Outstanding Graduate Student Achievement Award, Ohio University.
1988 Outstanding Achievement in the Presentation of Jazz Radio Programming, Howard University’s School of Fine Arts.
Presentations
2005 The African American Presence in the Ohio River Valley Symposium.
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The Cultural Underground Railroad: African-American Perfomance Art (Jazz) Within Indigenous Circulation Modes.
Abstract: The framework of African-American music that would become known as Jazz did not emerge at one moment, but rather evolved from well established, mature traditions within regional styles which flourished in six major geographical locations: East Coast, Southeast, Midwest, Northwest, Southwest, and West Coast. Within each locale, immediate antecedents: instrumental blues, Ragtime, and syncopated dance music, by the second decade of this century became the improvisationally-based music we have come to recognize as Jazz. Within each of these geographic designations, major cities became cauldrons, or cradles if you will, for this new music.
2004 Africa Diaspora in the Americas: State of Current Reesarch Conference, Athens, Ohio: Clifton Kentucky: The Ethnography of a Black Appalachian Enclave.
Abstract: The central and southern highlands of Appalachia that cut a diagonal swatch from northeast Alabama through Tennessee through Kentucky northeastward has historically been seen as essentially constituted by European settlers and the survivals of displaced indigenous Americans. The African-Americans from the late 18th century onwards. Clifton Kentucky was one of four a black hamlets that surrounded Danville Kentucky in Boyle County-the heart of the inner Bluegrass Belt.
2003 Great Lakes American Studies Conference: Athens, Ohio Tastin’ Up South-Cincinnati, Bar-B-Que, and Memory: An Ethnographic Digestif.
Abstract: The paper deconstructs the provincialism and regionality that surrounds BarB-Que lore. I trace the adaptation and improvisation of cooking by African-Americans who settled in Cincinnati, bringing with them memory while performing gustatory overlays upon the new social space.
2001 UNESCO Dialogue Among Civilizations International Conference,
Nominated by Professor Algis Mickunas along with two other of his students
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students along with Professor Alphonso Lingis of Penn State University to represent the United States at the Dialogue among Civilizations. The International Conference on the Dialogue Among Civilizations was held in Vilinius Lithuania under the joint auspices of the President of the Republic of Lithuania, the President of Poland, the Director-General of UNESCO.
UNESCO Dialogue Among Civilizations International Conference,
Workshop Moderator: “Otherness” Paper: The Same Difference: The Cartography an African Diaspora. Major responsibilities: -Moderate and conduct Q&A for workshop discussion session. -Synthesize workshop reports and present to conference plenary session.
-As a workshop moderator I was part of the drafting group of the Vilnius Declaration.
I was thus responsible for inserting language which accompanied the Declaration which called for a UNESCO sponsored international conference of global telecommunications, with particular emphasis upon independent and public service institutions, individuals as a counter-balance to an ever increasingly dominated global mediascape.
2000 “Summer Scholars Program,” Millersville University Millersville, Pennsylvania July 7-9, 2000. Presented two mediated lectures:
- The African American Televisual Image. A mediated-historical lecture investigating the construction of televisual imagery, stereotypes, and “normative”images of African-Americans from the inception of the television age (1948) to the present.
- Five on the Black-Hand Side: African American Humor as Transgressive Televisuality. A focused mediated lecture outlining the transgressive nature of Black humor, and the manner through which it elides the normative televisual gaze.
2000 NCA, National Communications Association, Seattle, Washington Ethnographic Division.
Panel: The Engaged Media Ethnographer: The Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy of Quick & Dirty Fieldwork. Tradin’ Fours: Auto-Ethnographic Interrogation Through Lived Research.
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1999 The African American Image In a Global Setting: The Black Documentary Genre, Lecture-video screening seminar for visiting Fulbright students, Ohio university. Screening was of the director’s cut of the documentary that I was Co-Producer, The March: Memory of a Gathering.”
1998 Million Man March: Documenting a Day in-the Lives, Afrikan Research Seminar, Black History Month Lecture Series, Columbus, Ohio. Presented the documentary, conducted Q & A with local and regional filmmakers.
“Re-Constructing an African American Public Image: The Black Documentary Genre,” Lecture/Video seminar for visiting Fulbright Students, Ohio University.
1998 Academic Responsibility and Field Work Lecture/video presentation as part of a series on “Academic Professionals and Their Research,” Department of Communications, Denison University, Grandview, Ohio.
1998 A Social History of the Blaxploitation Film Era, a lecture/video presentation to African American Studies 353, The Black Independent Cinema.
1997 Re-Constructing an African American Public Image: The Black Documentary Genre, Video seminar for visiting Fulbright Students, Ohio University.
1997 The Making & Meaning of Black Boy: he Richard Wright Story,
Presentation to Ohio University Alumni Association’s Atlanta Chapter, made on behalf of the Office of Alumni Relations, Ohio University. Presentation included, specially edited version of the documentary, accompanied by a Q&A session, student counseling, as well as production consultation with representatives of the film and video production groups.
1996 A Topography Of African American Dance Lecture/Video presentation to Fulbright Scholars, Ohio University.
1994 Creating Black Public History, Cleveland Black Film Collective Conference, Cleveland,Oh.
1991 “Finding Space in the Dark: An African American Televisual
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Historicity. Presented at SCA, Speech Communications Conference, Chicago, Ill 1990
“The Intersection of African American Improvised Music and the Western World.” Ninth International Jean Gebser Conference, Radford College, Radford, Va.
1989 A History of Black Vernacular Dance University of Graz International Student Exchange Program, Ohio University. Presented lecture and screened my dance documentary.
1988 Disturbin’ the Peace: The Black Avant Garde of the 60’s, Jazz Lecture Series Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1987 The State of Jazz, National Urban League Convention, Houston, Texas.
1986 Sun Ra, Musical Legend, Black Film Institute Series, University of District of Columbia.
Publications
1997 The Persistence of Memory an introduction to the program booklet for “Lost Jazz Shrines” project.
1984 A Light At the End of the Tunnel, Jazz Spotlite News.
1970-73 OMA Newsletter, editor, Office of Minority Affairs, National Association of Educational Broadcasters Washington,
1970 The Black Frontier, a history of the African American participation in the Western Frontier’s expansion. University Nebraska Television. Book that accompanied the four-part series.
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