Top honors for The First Four

The First Four, a student-produced documentary highlighting four of the first five women faculty members appointed to Lehigh’s English department, won top honors at the Greater Lehigh Valley Film Festival at the ArtsQuest Center in November.

The film was recognized in the category of short film (15 to 50 minutes), and was produced by Liana Prodorutti ’16, an English major; Laura Casale ’15, a journalism and English dual major; Meghan Barwick ’15, a journalism major; and Nadia Sasso, an American studies graduate student. They were advised by Michael Kramp, associate professor of English, and Julia Maserjian, a digital historian in Lehigh’s Library and Technology Services group.

The professors highlighted in the film—Rosemarie Arbur, Elizabeth Fifer, Rosemary Mundhenk and Barbara Traister—joined the university faculty between 1967 and 1974, a time of significant change at Lehigh. The First Four consists of individual and group interviews with these professors, as well as archival footage and images from yearbooks, newspapers and other periodicals.

“Learning about these women and telling their story inspired me to become more involved in feminism and the Women’s Center in particular,” said Barwick. “As a group of four women ourselves, it was a really valuable experience to work on this project.”