Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts presented “Finding Your Family” at the Askew Student Life Center where the stories on screen reflected a decade of creative fire.

Part of the 2026 Festival of the Creative Arts (FCA), the event showcased eight student-produced short films. The curated selection bridged the gap between the filmmakers’ formative years in Tallahassee and their current professional careers at industry titans like DreamWorks.

The genres ranged from the puppetry of Kyra Gardner’s “Phoebe” to Farsi-English drama “Hasti Joon” by Emmy nominee Sara Karimipour. A singular theme ran throughout the evening: the search for belonging. David Barrow Wiley, filmmaker-in-residence at the College of Motion Picture Arts, noted the creative impact and formative influence that students experience through their time in the college.

“In any arts collective, you go through a process of finding out who you are and seeing how that resonates against the space you occupy,” Wiley said. “When students come here, they start to see who they are. That changes their relationship with the world and how they respond back to the family they were assigned at birth.”

The program highlighted the technical and emotional risks that define the FSU film experience. In one notable example, the entire crew of Summer Schantz’s “Pink is the Color of the Ocean” dyed their hair pink and ran into the ocean to mark the end of filming, both manifestations of the “chosen family” found on set.

For Wiley, who previously served as the college’s head of set operations, the screening was a deeply personal return to FSU. He recalled a phrase he used to tell his students while teaching them the rigors of production safety: “I need you to sow this into your soul.”

“Usually, I was talking about being safe on set and wrapping cables correctly but seeing them come back and share how those years shaped their voices — that’s the real family connection,” Wiley said. “Their trajectory in the industry is emotional for me because it’s clear that they have kept themselves safe while garnering substantive work and accolades.”

The screening was followed by a Q&A session where Wiley and lecturer Laura Lee shared reflections sent in by the alumni, many of whom are now working as staff writers, directors and cinematographers.

Iain Quinn, director of FCA, noted that the event serves as a centerpiece for the university’s commitment to interdisciplinary engagement. By opening the screening to the public, the university strengthens its ties with a community that provides the actors, locations and support necessary for student success.

“We are a film school reliant on the community,” Wiley said. “These collaborations have sewn the film school into the fabric of Tallahassee.”

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While most people view walking as a simple means to get from point A to point B, a recent interdisciplinary lecture at Florida State University suggests that traveling on foot is an essential act that defines our relationship with the world.

Co-presented by the Milton S. Carothers Faculty Lecture Series and the Festival of the Creative Arts, “The Art of Walking” brought together scholars from across the university to discuss the practice of “flânerie,” or the art of urban strolling.

Held in the Bradley Reading Room of Robert Manning Strozier Library, the event offered a deep dive into how the simple act of walking shapes social identity and urban policy. FSU’s First Lady Dr. Jai Vartikar kicked off the afternoon’s program, welcoming attendees and highlighting the importance of the arts and humanities in sparking these interdisciplinary conversations.

“For 45 years, the Carothers Lecture Series has been a space for important conversations that bridge academic disciplines, bring people together and encourage us to think more broadly and to imagine more boldly. That spirit of collaboration is very much alive at FSU today.” 

— Dr. Jai Vartikar, First Lady of Florida State University

“For 45 years, the Carothers Lecture Series has been a space for important conversations that bridge academic disciplines, bring people together and encourage us to think more broadly and to imagine more boldly,” Vartikar said. “That spirit of collaboration is very much alive at FSU today.”

The conversation featured Aimée Boutin, a professor of French in the College of Arts and Sciences and Meaghan McSorley, an assistant professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy.

Boutin, an expert in 19th-century French studies, opened the lecture by exploring the history of the flâneur. She described the kaleidoscopic encounters of figures in French literature who wandered through Paris, treating the sights and sounds of the city as a “sensory feast.”

“The flâneur does not merely navigate space; they read the city like a living text, capturing the ephemeral beauty and social friction that define the urban experience,” Boutin said.

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Florida State University research is connecting the arts and humanities to health, healing and human connection, demonstrating how interdisciplinary scholarship can improve healthcare.

Faculty and students from across campus gathered on Feb. 10 at the Claude Pepper Center for the Arts–Health–Humanities Symposium VI, an interdisciplinary forum exploring how creative and scholarly perspectives converge to advance human well-being and healthcare. The symposium is part of the Festival of the Creative Arts, a monthlong celebration of the voices, talents and creativity of FSU faculty and students.

“By bringing together researchers from different disciplines, the symposium creates opportunities to collaborate and expand research across campus,” said Professor Iain Quinn, research fellow in the Arts and Humanities and director of the Festival of the Creative Arts. “The inherently interdisciplinary nature of the event allows us to benefit from the knowledge of other fields and strengthen our own work.”

Now in its sixth iteration, the symposium featured faculty and student researchers from medicine, music therapy, interior design, ethnomusicology, art therapy and the humanities. Presentations, experiential performances and poster sessions highlighted emerging scholarship in arts-based health research and its applications across the lifespan.

For Daejin Kim, associate professor in the College of Fine Arts, principles of architectural and interior design play a critical role in shaping environments that support both physical safety and psychological well-being. Kim’s research focuses on how interior design strategies can help older adults age in place while maintaining independence.

His presentation emphasized how thoughtful design choices, including lighting, spatial layout and material selection, can reduce fall risk while preserving autonomy and dignity. Rather than relying solely on clinical safety standards, Kim stressed the importance of centering the lived experiences of older adults in design decisions.

“Design has the power to support both safety and autonomy,” Kim said. “When we consider the lived experience of older adults, we can create environments that promote independence without sacrificing dignity.”

Several presentations explored the role of the arts in medical education and healthcare practice. Tana Jean Welch, associate professor at the College of Medicine, discussed “HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature,” a creative arts journal published by the FSU College of Medicine. Welch highlighted the journal’s history and its role in fostering reflection, empathy and humanism in medical training.

Music as medicine

Music therapy research featured prominently throughout the symposium, with presentations spanning infancy through adolescence. Adriana Lizardi-Vázquez, a doctoral student in music therapy, opened her presentation by singing a lullaby commonly used by caregivers in Puerto Rico. Drawing from a study of caregivers with infants ranging from newborns to 18 months old, Lizardi-Vázquez documented more than 180 distinct lullabies and identified shared musical characteristics such as simple melodies, slow tempo and repetition.

Her findings highlight how familiar music supports bonding, language development and emotional regulation.

Other research explored adolescents’ use of music as a coping strategy. Doctoral students Parintorn “Pim” Pankaew and Shun Ee “Racheal” Yap presented findings from a statewide survey of Florida adolescents, revealing widespread use of music for stress management, emotional expression and relaxation. Their work explores how these patterns can inform music therapy–informed wellness and mental health interventions.

James E. Riley addressed professional development in music therapy, sharing preliminary findings on entrepreneurship in the field. While nearly 90% of surveyed music therapy students expressed interest in entrepreneurial work, a similar percentage reported receiving little to no formal guidance.

“There’s a disconnect between how students are trained and the professional realities they will face,” Riley said. “Future music therapists must develop professional and entrepreneurial skills alongside clinical training to navigate today’s healthcare and wellness industries.”

In an experiential session, Michael Bakan, professor of ethnomusicology, led participants in a group vocal performance inspired by the gamelan suara, or “vocal gamelan,” of Bali, Indonesia, demonstrating how collective music-making can foster social cohesion, wellness and joy.

Creativity continues

Poster presentations further highlighted student and faculty research at the intersection of the arts and health, with topics including art therapy assessments for PTSD, community music therapy initiatives, and the art-informed study of the experiences of athletes with disabilities.

“In times of shared challenge, the arts remind us that connection is essential,” Bakan said. “They help us build community, process experience and support one another in ways that are fundamental to human health.”

The Festival of the Creative Arts continues Monday, Feb. 16, with a screening of “Nickel Boys,” a film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, from 6-9 p.m. at the Askew Student Life Center on FSU’s campus.

Visit the Festival of the Creative Arts website for a full schedule of programming.

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Renaissance-era artist Albrecht Dürer and “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” director Christopher McQuarrie both knew that if you want an outdoor image that captivates audiences, you need the right sky.

For Dürer, that meant fine lines to depict squalls, storms, lightning and other ephemeral atmospheric phenomena. For McQuarrie, that meant a background of cloudy skies to emphasize the action in a high-flying stunt scene.

In Dürer’s engravings, Hollywood films and so many other works of art, “the weather is part of the story,” said Stephanie Leitch, a professor in the Florida State University College of Fine Arts.

Leitch was joined by National Weather Service meteorologists, FSU students and faculty, local artists and other presenters at “It’s the Weather!,” an exploration of the inspiring world of weather hosted Feb. 7 at the Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee. The event was part of the FSU Festival of the Creative Arts, a monthlong celebration of the voices, talents and creativity of FSU faculty and students.

Leitch’s presentation in the center’s Fogg Planetarium took viewers on a whirlwind tour through 500 years of representations of the weather.

After starting with icons of the winds from Renaissance etchings, she shared other examples throughout art history. In Giorgione’s painting “The Tempest,” the viewer’s eye might first be drawn to the human subjects in the foreground before noticing the storm behind them. In Caspar David Friedrich’s 1800s painting “The Monk by the Sea,” the religious figure is dwarfed by a turbulent sea and sky. Studio Ghibli’s 2013 film “The Wind Rises” uses soft clouds as a frequent backdrop to tell the story of an engineer developing a new fighter plane.

“The landscape and atmospheric effects inform what we think about the subject of the art,” Leitch said.

For local fiber artist Kate Taylor, weather was not just the inspiration behind her artwork — it was the subject itself.

Her quilt “Whether you like it or not: A weather report for 2022 from Dogtown, Florida,” represents a year of weather data in a cozy medium.

“We’ve always had a relationship with weather, but because we have air conditioning and heating now, we don’t connect to that need to understand weather as we used to,” she said.

“Whether you like it or not” is Taylor’s attempt to make a closer examination of the weather around her. For each day of the year, she quilted a small square documenting the conditions at her Gadsden County home. An arrow pointing up represented the high temperature, an arrow pointing down showed the low temperature, and the background reflected the sky that day.

Another work depicted average high and low temperatures in Tallahassee for each decade of her life, starting in the 1950s.

“With anything scientific, you have to keep good notes,” she said. “That’s also the way art works. I ran out of fabric that was pre-dyed before I completed the quilt. I had to go back to my notes and then to the dye pot to complete this.”

Tallahassee community member Zoila Curry brought her children, 4-year-old Sofy, 8-year-old Kosmo, and 10-year-old Aleena, to the center to learn about weather and practice making new artmaking methods.

“Art is big in our house,” Curry said. “This event was a cool way to show that you can tie art into anything, any aspect of life, even something like the weather.”

Her husband, former FSU triple jumper and Olympian Rafeeq Curry, designed the medals for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships that were recently held in Tallahassee. Drawings, sketches, jewelry and food are just some of the ways they practice creativity at home.

At the center, Sofy showed off a sparkly rainbow that she made at an activity station imitating the work of visual artist Robert Siedel. Other stations saw visitors creating pieces with pastels, weaving construction paper onto a visual representation of a day’s weather, or cutting paper to mimic snowflakes in homage to the scientist Wilson Bentley, who captured the first photographs of individual snowflakes.

Projects like these help students practice motor skills, observation, creativity and other skills, said Abbygail DeVore, a master’s student in the FSU art therapy program. For the FSU students volunteering, it was an opportunity to practice working with children on developmentally appropriate artwork.

The science behind the weather was also on display. Employees from the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Tallahassee office brought the tools of their trade, such as a temperature sensor and a weather balloon.

At ground level, a weather balloon is about six feet in diameter. After it is released into the atmosphere, it grows to about 30 feet in diameter because of changes in atmospheric pressure before it bursts. Even at just six feet wide, it was a striking prop in the Challenger Learning Center lobby, drawing visitors to the NWS booth for information about how meteorologists work and ways for Floridians to be safe in storms.

It doesn’t take a meteorologist to appreciate a sunset or marvel at the power of a storm. But some artistic principles from graphic design and communications are at work when sharing weather information with the public.

The Festival of the Creative Arts continues Tuesday, Feb. 10 with Arts-Health-Humanities Symposium VI from 12-2:30 p.m. at the Claude Pepper Center, 636 W. Call St.

Visit the Festival of the Creative Arts website for a full schedule of events.

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Florida State University will spotlight the growing field of medical humanities during the Arts-Health-Humanities Symposium VI 12-2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at FSU’s Claude Pepper Center.

The symposium involves faculty and students — from design, medicine, music education, music therapy and musicology — carrying conversations about current research and future interdisciplinary collaborations. It is part of the Festival of the Creative Arts, an annual campuswide event hosted by FSU’s Office of Research that features creative and innovative voices that span across university disciplines.

Tuesday’s symposium, a fusion of arts and medicine, includes FSU Associate Professor of Medical Humanities Tana Jean Welch, a poet and scholar of contemporary American poetry and medical humanities. In her field, she shows how reading and writing poetry, all forms of creative writing, can benefit those in the high-stress medical field.

Welch says that poetry echoes the human experience, drawing countless parallels between what is written and what is felt.

“Poetry’s use of blank space, collage, ambiguity, and fragmented language echoes our embodied experience in many ways,” Welch said. “The meaning of a poem, just like the meaning of a body, can shift from reader to reader or from day to day — in this way, poetry can be a truer representation of the body and bodily health. The way we feel in our bodies — emotionally, physically, psychologically — is constantly changing as our bodies encounter other bodies. Poetry provides space for variation.”

Welch teaches courses in literature, writing and humanities and serves as the director of the Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine Program (CHAMP), seeking to enhance the intellectual and emotional environment at the FSU College of Medicine through extracurricular arts and humanities programming.

She is also the managing editor for a journal called “HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature.” In the seasonal journal doctors, students and patients share stories, painting and poems about their lives in the medical world. Welch believes tapping into this creativity helps medical professionals in their everyday work.

“Creative and reflective writing is important for anyone in any field,” Welch said. “It is a critical thinking tool — the act of writing can reveal hitherto unknown knowledge and emotions. Searching for the right words forces us to think deeper. This can be quite valuable in the medical profession.”

Media interested in learning and covering medical humanities and how Welch’s teachings intersect with the medical community can reach her at tana.welch@med.fsu.edu.

Tana Jean Welch, associate professor of medical humanities, College of Medicine

How can poetry be interconnected to medicine and healing?

Another important connection between poetry, health and illness comes when one considers the task of poetry. Poetry’s purpose is to express the ineffable, to say what cannot be said any other way. There is much about our health that is difficult to communicate, including what pain feels like, what the body is experiencing, or the emotional feelings that accompany pain and illness. Poetry can bring us that much closer to feeling what someone else is feeling, thus, bringing us closer to empathy, connection and understanding. Poetry can help us articulate the complexity of life and help us change the language we use to construct conditions of health and illness.

In your work you discuss “the human entanglement.” What does it mean and why is it so important?

It is impossible to maintain opposition or separation between the human body and everything else. For example, one cannot speak of human health as independent from ecosystem health. Health is also not independent from economics or politics, weather or location, or a million other material or cultural entities. Recognition of our bodily entanglement reduces the emphasis placed on individual choice, and individual value, as health outcome predictors, while also encouraging us to acknowledge our kinship with all others. This recognition is vital for achieving true health equity.

How do your areas of focus benefit those working in the medical profession?

As the founder of the narrative medicine movement, Dr. Rita Charon, notes, ‘When health professionals write, in whatever genre and diction they choose, about clinical experiences, they as a matter of course discover aspects of the experience that, until writing, were not evident to them.’ Writing about a clinical experience offers providers a place to reflect on what could’ve been done differently, or what worked well. This speaks directly to HEAL’s primary mission — to serve as a venue for medical students and healthcare professionals to reflect and discover. HEAL also publishes narratives written by patients about their healthcare experiences to expand the perspectives available to our students and community. Our capacity for empathy is enlarged both when we read someone else’s story and when we write about our role in someone else’s life.

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The wonders of weather will take center stage at the upcoming “It’s the Weather!” event, part of Florida State University’s Festival of the Creative Arts.

FSU art history, art education and music education faculty will partner with staff from the Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee and the National Weather Service to deliver a fun, informative look at the weather and nature. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about the weather and nature in works of art while discovering scientific facts about our world.

“We’re happy to host ‘It’s the Weather!’ at the Challenger Learning Center as part of the Festival of the Creative Arts,” said Alan Hanstein, executive director of the center. “It’s a fun way to connect science and creativity, especially for younger audiences, while introducing the importance of understanding weather as a core part of STEM learning.”

The natural world has long been a source of inspiration for scientists and artists alike. In her presentation, Professor Stephanie Leitch will start with work from Renaissance Italy, such as Giorgione’s painting “The Tempest,” and take her audience forward more than 500 years to our era, when clouds punctuated a high-flying Tom Cruise stunt in “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.”

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(Updated 12:20 p.m. Jan. 28, 2026) 

Florida State University’s Office of Research will host the 2026 Festival of the Creative Arts, a campuswide event that highlights the voices, talents and creativity of FSU faculty and students in February and early March.

Departments from across campus will celebrate the innovation and creative excellence that results from combining various modes of expression and disciplines.

“Each year, the Festival of the Creative Arts celebrates interdisciplinary engagement across campus with events that include faculty and student participation,” said Iain Quinn, festival director and FSU’s Research Fellow in the arts and humanities. “In addition to ongoing research conversations that develop from one festival to another, there are also new collaborations and multiple first performances.”

Several events are offered for K-12 students and families, including “It’s the Weather!” at the Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee on Saturday, Feb. 7. There will also be a premiere of a new performance work involving digital art and music.

“It’s an excellent opportunity to learn about the historic and contemporary connections between art and science with multiple hands-on activities,” Quinn said. “The festival is always a special opportunity for everyone to be inspired by the creative spirit that defines FSU.”

All events are free of charge, and no reservations are required. For more information, visit research.fsu.edu/fca.

The full list of events includes:

FRIDAY, FEB. 6

Poets at the Party
7:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theatre, Katherine W. Montgomery Hall

A special collaboration between dance, hospitality, music and poetry featuring multiple premieres across disciplines.

Participants: Darcie Ogando Almánzar, Jacob Andrews, Lilian Baker, Shea Boeker, Jacob Grice, Isabelle Hagley, Caroline Laganas, Raúl Parra, Natalie Eleanor Patterson, Camille Pepper, Christell Victoria Roach, Jan Schwalbe, Sophia Upshaw, Hugh Wilhelm, Kuan-Yu Yang and members of the FSU Trombone Choir. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 7

It’s the Weather!
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee

Come and learn about the weather and nature in works of art while discovering scientific facts about the world around us. This event features hands-on activities led by faculty from the departments of art history, art education and music education, as well as the first performance of a new interdisciplinary work with digital art and music. Great for K-12 students.

Participants: Angelina Ciardi, Eren Gümrükçüoğlu, Ann Harrington, Stephanie Leitch, Marlo Ransdell, Keith Roberson, Sara Scott Shields, the FSU Guitar Ensemble and the National Weather Service Tallahassee.

SUNDAY, FEB. 8

Storytime Under the Stars
6 – 7 p.m.
Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee

Experience an evening of nostalgia and wonder at the Fogg Planetarium, where classic stories come to life under a celestial canopy of stars. This event is specially designed for young children and their families.

Participant: Christine Hansen.

TUESDAY, FEB. 10

Arts-Health-Humanities Symposium VI
12 – 2:30 p.m.
Claude Pepper Center

This annual festival meeting of faculty and students — from design, medicine, music education, music therapy and musicology — continues conversations about current research and future interdisciplinary collaborations. Includes poster presentations by art therapy and music therapy.

Participants: Michael Bakan, Daejin Kim, Adriana Lizardi-Vázquez, Parintorn “Pim” Pankaew, James Riley, Tana Jean Welch and Racheal Yap.

THURSDAY, FEB. 12

Classics Symposium
5:30 – 7 p.m.
Beth Moor Lounge, Longmire Building

Join a celebration of Ancient Greek and Latin poetry featuring an evening of readings of ancient texts and creative performances by students and faculty.

Coordinator: Virginia Lewis.

MONDAY, FEB. 16

Nickel Boys
6 – 9 p.m.
Askew Student Life Center

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, “Nickel Boys” chronicles the powerful friendship between two young African American men sentenced to Nickel Academy. Co-presented with the FSU Civil Rights Institute.

Participants: Ted T. Ellis, Keithen Mathis, Dennis Moore and Mark Schlakman.

TUESDAY, FEB. 17

The Art of Walking
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Bradley Reading Room, Strozier Library

Walking in the city is not only a form of physical exercise and transportation, but a social and cultural practice described as flânerie. The lecture will amble through some of the major French figures who wrote about the flâneur’s and flâneuse’s kaleidoscopic encounters with the sights and sounds of urban life. Co-presented with the Milton S. Carothers Faculty Lecture Series.

Participants: Aimée Boutin and Meaghan McSorley.

FRIDAY, FEB. 20

Lay of the Land
Symposium: 2 – 5:30 p.m.; Opening: 6 – 8 p.m.
Facility for Arts Research

“Lay of the Land” is a Department of Art faculty exhibition and symposium exploring the beauty, complexity and fragility of the landscapes we inhabit.

Participants: Department of Art Faculty.

SUNDAY, FEB. 22

Chamber Music of Frank Martin
4 – 5:30 p.m.
Longmire Recital Hall

A concert devoted to the music of the great Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974), offering an exceptional opportunity to hear his distinctive voice across numerous contrasting ensembles.

Participants: Stijn De Cock, Geoffrey Deibel, Amy Dill, Suzanne Lommler, Mary Matthews, Dylan Principi, Pamela Ryan, Gregory Sauer, Natalie Sherer, Marcy Stonikas, Shannon Thomas and Valerie Trujillo.

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 25

The Contemporary Film – Finding Your Family
6 – 9 p.m.
Askew Student Life Center

An evening of cinematic exploration with panel discussions about the many definitions of family. Screening of a collection of student shorts followed by a Q&A conversation with members of FSUFILM faculty.

FRIDAY-SATURDAY, FEB. 27-28

24-Hour Create-A-Thon
Feb. 27, 4 p.m. – 12 a.m.; Feb. 28, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Pitches, Performances, Awards: Feb. 28, 2 – 4 p.m.
Innovation Hub

FSU students from across campus work in interdisciplinary teams to develop new works that celebrate creativity as a foundation of innovation across the disciplines. Registration opens Jan. 26.

Coordinator: Ken Baldauf.

SUNDAY, MARCH 1

Interlocking Art: A Mixed Media Gala
6 – 9 p.m.
Student Union

Club Downunder and the Department of Student Engagement present an evening of student creativity across the arts, culminating in an annual fashion show.

Exhibitions

Water Ways: Indigenous Ecologies and Florida Heritage
Elizabeth A. Cecil (Curator)
Co-presented with the FSU Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.
Museum of Fine Arts

Akimbo: A Solo Exhibition by Zoë Charlton
An installation and animated film exploring themes of memory, place, and resilience in the Tallahassee Landscape.
Museum of Fine Arts

Lay of the Land
Department of Art Faculty
Facility for Arts Research

The Art of Healing – Ted T. Ellis
Robert Manning Strozier Library

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The Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee, the K-12 STEM outreach arm of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, proudly hosted two highly successful events as part of the Florida State University Festival of the Creative Arts (FCA) this past weekend. This marked the first collaboration between the Challenger Learning Center and the festival, bringing together faculty, students and staff across disciplines to deliver interactive, art-infused experiences focused on space, creativity and discovery.

On Saturday, Feb. 8, the Challenger Learning Center presented “Shakespeare and the Stars” — a unique fusion of literature, space science and the arts. Participants explored the connections between Shakespeare’s works and the cosmos through interactive art projects, music sessions and hands-on activities and demonstrations led by faculty, staff and students from English, Art Education, Music Education, the Challenger Learning Center and even the Flying High Circus. The event captivated K-12 students and families with its creative hands-on approach.

The excitement continued Sunday, Feb. 9, with “Storytime Under the Stars,” an enchanting evening designed for young children and families. Guests gathered under the celestial canopy of the Fogg Planetarium to enjoy classic stories in a magical setting. The special guest FCA Storybook Reader for the evening was Christine Hansen, program manager for the Askew Student Life Center, whose engaging storytelling brought the experience to life.

“This collaboration showcased the magic that happens when science, art and imagination come together,” said Alan Hanstein, executive director of the Challenger Learning Center. “Seeing young minds light up as they connected literature and creativity with the wonders of space is exactly why we do what we do. We’re proud to be part of the Festival of the Creative Arts and can’t wait to build on this success in the years ahead.”

Festival director and FSU Research Fellow in the Arts and Humanities, Iain Quinn, echoed the sentiment: “This is the first FCA collaboration with the Challenger Learning Center, and I’m thrilled it has been such a success. To see faculty and students from multiple colleges working next to each other and engaging with the public was wonderful. We greatly look forward to next year.”

Both events demonstrated the Challenger Learning Center’s ongoing commitment to providing innovative, interdisciplinary STEM/STEAM learning experiences to the Tallahassee community and beyond.

For more information about upcoming events at the Challenger Learning Center, visit www.challengertlh.com.

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Three Florida State University faculty from across campus came together to discuss the wide-ranging topic of ethics in a Friday, Feb. 7 symposium at FSU’s Claude Pepper Center.

The symposium was part of the FSU Office of Research’s larger Festival of the Creative Arts, a campuswide collaborative event highlighting the diverse voice, talents and creativity of FSU faculty and students throughout January and February.

The discussion focused on three larger topics as they relate to ethics: Agatha Christie and ethical ambiguity, ethics and research in musicology and ethical challenges posed by national defense and international scientific research.

Michelle Kazmer, dean and professor at the College of Communication and Information, kicked the symposium off with her discussion of ethical ambiguity in the works of Agatha Christie. Christie is an English author best known for her detective novels, plays and short stories.

“Crime fiction has, for millennia, helped us grapple with what it means to be human: how do we collectively respond when people break our shared ethical obligations in the most egregious ways possible?” Kazmer said. “Agatha Christie explored many ethical issues with nuance and breadth across her half-century writing career, offering thoughtful explorations into thorny issues of ethics, obligation and justice.”

Throughout the discussion, Kazmer addressed the primary ethical themes that Christie grappled with in her works and how she used characters, setting, social norms and plot as an avenue for readers to explore those themes.

Curtis Mayes Orpheus Professor in the College of Music Frank Gunderson highlighted ethical considerations in ethnomusicology and musicology, underlining how these considerations are crucial for fostering responsible and respectful scholarship.

“Ethical music research is not a static set of guidelines to be checked off in a proposal; it is an evolving practice of accountability, dialogue and mutual respect,” Gunderson said. “It’s asking, ‘What do I owe the people who trust me with their stories?’”

Gunderson’s discussion highlighted what he argues should serve as guiding pillars in this process: informed consent, power and representation, ownership, collaboration and accountability. He advocates for continuous reflection and adaptation of ethical practices to address the evolving challenges of ethnomusicology and musicology.

Closing out the symposium was Gregory S. Boebinger, professor of physics and director emeritus of FSU’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. Boebinger explored the ethical challenges posed by national defense and international scientific research.

“Basic research, by its very nature, is collaborative and cooperative,” Boebinger said. “More applied research, particularly in areas involving national security, introduces additional ethical complexity. This is well illustrated in the film ‘Oppenheimer’, in which a number of ethical considerations are raised by the main characters as they consider their role in the Manhattan Project, the international collaboration that resulted in the first atomic bomb.”

Joined by three FSU honors students, Boebinger also discussed the ethical implications of AI as a modern and timely example of this ethical dilemma and posed questions about the fundamentally cooperative and collaborative research for the benefit of the masses.

Festival of the Creative Arts continues through Sunday, Feb. 23, bringing together departments from across campus to celebrate the innovation that results from combining various modes of expression and subjects together.

For more information and the full program of events, visit research.fsu.edu/fca.

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The Florida State University Department of Mathematics welcomed K-12 students, their families and members of the Tallahassee community last week for the 10th annual Math Fun Day, an event demonstrating how math exists in exciting ways all around us, far beyond what we see in worksheets and homework.  

Math Fun Day, which is free and open to the public, invites attendees to take part in various hands-on activities and engaging demonstrations that derive from mathematical theories and practices.  

This year’s event, held Saturday, Feb. 1, in the Love Building on FSU’s main campus, was conducted in partnership with the FSU Festival of the Creative Arts, a month-long campus-wide collaborative festival highlighting varied areas of research and creativity.  

“Math Fun Day has a lot of hands-on opportunities, visuals and exciting activities to show that math is a lot of fun,” said Monica Hurdal, Math Fun Day director, biomathematics professor and associate chair for academic affairs in FSU’s mathematics department. “At the event, people are often surprised to see how each activity relates to mathematics. Encouraging students to think this way and change their perspective on math is so enjoyable.” 

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Florida State University’s College of Music recently hosted its third annual Sing with the Symphony event, a highlight of FSU’s Festival of the Creative Arts that merged the artistry of music with the theme of mathematics.

This performance featured the University Symphony Orchestra, and the College of Music choirs, Levana and Chamber Choir. The conductors were Alexander Jiménez, Michael Hanawalt, McKenna Stenson and Guilherme Leal Rodrigues

“This event not only highlighted the creative collaboration between the arts and sciences but also reinforced FSU’s commitment to interdisciplinary work and community involvement,” said Iain Quinn, professor of organ, festival director and FSU’s research fellow in the arts and humanities. “The success of Sing with the Symphony is a testament to the university’s dedication to fostering a vibrant environment. It was wonderful to welcome a significant audience from the larger Tallahassee community and the whole morning was very inspiring.”

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