Filmmakers

Brooke Barnett is a documentary filmmaker, scholar, and academic administrator who became the 16th president of Rollins College in 2025. She earned a master’s degree in journalism and a Ph.D. in communication from Indiana University, where she worked at WTIU, the university’s public television station. There she collaborated with folklorist Tom Mould on a series of documentaries about Indiana folklife, including films on quilting, covered bridges, limestone carving, morel mushroom hunting, African American stepping, euchre, and the Miami Indian powwow. These films, produced in 1998 for WTIU’s Indiana Folklife series, are now available on Folkstreams. Barnett later taught at Elon University and held senior academic leadership positions at Elon and Butler University before becoming president of Rollins College.