Instructor Buddy Moorehouse and eight students in the documentary filmmaking class premiered their feature-length documentary “The Price of Independence” in the Searle Center Wednesday night.

The documentary details the college’s clash with the federal government and the origin of it not taking any federal aid. The premiere night included “The Price of Independence” and six short documentaries made by pairs or individual students. 

“It was really cool, seeing the stories behind people on campus, especially on Wild Bill, learning his backstory,” sophomore Kyle Johns said. 

The short documentaries explored features of the students’ friends, faculty, and campus folklore.

“The assignment was to find an interesting Hillsdale College student and do a little documentary about them,” senior Tracy Wilson said. “I chose a friend who is very fun to be around, very outgoing, and has an interesting story to tell.”

Students explored the lives of students who grew up overseas, told the story of professor Bill Lundberg, and a 1970 Neil Diamond and John Denver concert hosted by the college. 

“The Price of Independence” was a 27-minute-long film culminating two-and-a-half months of work by the students.

“Being able to delve deep into this story that we all know the basics of, but getting into the nitty gritty, that was really great,” sophomore Kamden Mulder said. “Being able to talk to students who, in my opinion, this impacts the most, and getting to hear how they deal with all this and how it impacts their life here at Hillsdale College was really great.”

The documentary began its story in the mid-1960s, when the college was facing financial difficulties.

As Title IX imposed the requirement on the college, it refused to comply, leading to a lawsuit that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I had heard of the story before, but I didn’t know the full details, that it went all the way to the Supreme Court and got the attention of President Reagan,” Johns said. “It goes all the way back to Roche and Spike Hennessy, who supported the college when it was outright broke.”

Moorehouse praised the students’ research working on the film, and pointed out Hennessy’s significance to keeping the college from financial failure.

“I was blown away when I saw the research they came up with, that it was a pharmacist, Spike Hennessy, that kept the college afloat in the early 1960s,” Moorehouse said. “If it hadn’t been for this local pharmacist, none of us would be here right now, the college would have folded.”

In order to put together the film, the students flew to Washington, D.C., to gather interviews, B-roll, and research.

“It was a wonderful experience,” Mulder said. “All of the clips you see from D.C. were shot by us, the interview with Judge Facciola was filmed in D.C., as well as the student interviews. It was an integral part of creating the entire documentary and we’re so blessed that there are people who support the college and support our mission here that were able to make it so we were able to go on that trip.”

The Dow Journalism Program added Moorehouse, an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, as an adjunct instructor prior to the 2021 spring semester. This semester marks his fifth semester teaching the class, each of which has ended with a similar premiere night.

“John Miller really wanted to have that third leg of the journalism department, to have a video component,” Moorehouse said. “There’s something very, very special about telling any story in a documentary, it’s unlike any other medium.”

The documentary can be viewed here.