Lafayette College’s documentary storymaking minor is facing an uncertain future after its longtime partners stepped away from the program at the end of last year.
The minor, established roughly a decade ago, was originally approved as a collaborative program through the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges, a group of Lehigh Valley higher education institutions. Faculty at Lehigh University and Muhlenberg College contributed courses each year, allowing students to take documentary-focused classes across the institutions.
Last fall, according to Director of the Arts Katherine Groo, the college was informed that the consortium closed the program. While Lafayette continues to offer documentary courses as electives, its partners are no longer regularly contributing classes. The college’s curriculum and educational policy committee will now determine next steps, according to Groo.
“With just three permanent faculty members, it is difficult to offer another minor in addition to our Film and Media Studies major and minor without more administrative and teaching support,” Groo said.
Drew Swedberg, an adjunct professor who has taught all three core courses required for the minor, said he was told by a college representative to stop promoting the minor to students. The three required courses have since been reclassified as electives, and Swedberg was informed he should not be teaching electives. None of the documentary courses were offered this spring semester.
Last year, Swedberg said, approximately 40 students completed the introductory course to documentary storymaking. He said they “now have no place to land within the minor.”
Swedberg was one of the first graduates of the minor at Muhlenberg, later serving as a teaching assistant and instructor. He credited the minor with shaping his professional path as a working documentary filmmaker.
“If these classes are only offered as electives, the trajectory and relationship-building that the minor was committed to falls apart,” he said.
McKenna Graf ‘26, an English and Film & Media Studies double major completing her final requirement for the minor, said the uncertainty came as a surprise.
“I don’t think it needs to be a major,” she said. “But I think it stands very strongly on its own as a minor.”
Graf added that shifting documentary minor courses to electives could possibly negatively impact its visibility on campus.
“I received hardly any communication, other than that it was shut down,” wrote Parth Mahajan ‘27 in an email, referring to the program’s pause. He had planned to complete a documentary storymaking minor, and convinced a friend to pursue the program as well.
“Hearing of what was happening to the minor was a huge blow to me and my plan,” he continued. “The minor was one of the key reasons I chose to major in FAMS in the first place because I knew it was a place where I could experiment and learn so much about the craft of all kinds of cinema.”
Both Swedberg and Graf emphasized the program’s interdisciplinary and community-building mission. Swedberg noted that since he began teaching, the minor has brought 14 working documentary filmmakers to campus to mentor students and screen their work. He argued that the minor strengthens connections not only across departments, but across the Lehigh Valley.
Drew Swedberg • Feb 20, 2026 at 2:57 pm
I wanted to quickly offer an important correction on the caption below the photograph: approx. 40 total students were enrolled in Intro to Documentary Storymaking in Fall 2024 and Fall 2025!