To those who know him, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Bob Bednar was politically active as a teenager. What might come as a shock, however, is that this self-described "leftist" and supporter of the Green Party was actually a part of the Reagan Youth. 

After campaigning for President Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bednar quickly rose through the ranks of the Young Conservatives of Texas, eventually becoming the State Secretary. With the intention of going to law school and becoming a senator, he served a summer internship in Washington, D.C., with the Republican Senator Charles Grassley. It was there, he says, that his disillusionment with politics began.

"My job that summer was assistant appointment secretary, which essentially meant I kept people away from the senator. I also responded to constituent letters and signed them with the 'auto-pen.' It was cool to have these responsibilities, but at the same time, I was afraid for democracy that an 18 year-old would have all this power."

He admits that much of his conservative activism was a rebellion against his upbringing, and that when he got to Southwestern, his views took a 180-degree turn. "I really came into my own in college. By taking political science, history and sociology courses, I was exposed to different versions of the democratic process, and I was challenged to think about things I'd never thought about before."

From his first days as an undergraduate, Bednar says he felt very connected to Southwestern. "I latched on to the idea of developing relationships with teachers, and it became clear to me that much of the learning here takes place outside the classroom. That was what eventually drew me back."

After graduating in 1989, he pursued his masters and doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin. While he was interested in teaching, he also had a desire to be a journalist and to make documentaries. For a while, he even considered leaving school for a job as a museum curator in Wyoming.

Although he turned that opportunity down, his summer travels in the Northwest did give him the idea for his dissertation and the topic of a book he's currently writing - Western National Park tourism.

"I would see all these large groups of people taking pictures in front of monuments and scenery, and I became interested in the question of why we travel to these places and take pictures of ourselves to bring home. How do we use photographs to represent these experiences?"

Most recently, Bednar's interest in media led him to filmmaking. Through a class with Austin Film Works, he made a documentary last year about the central Austin neighborhood, Hyde Park. With the same class, he will soon begin work on a 10-minute film called "Taking Pictures," a fictional script he wrote that grew out of his research.

He's also helping four Southwestern students to start a campus television station. The group worked on the project last fall as an independent study and recently received a King Creativity Fund Grant to help purchase necessary equipment. Having been approved as a student publication, the station should be on the air by the end of this semester.

"I'm always looking for new ways to get cross-talk going between my teaching, research, and now film."

Next fall, Bednar will have a brand new interest in his life. He and his spouse Danielle are expecting their first child in September. It's a safe bet there will be plenty of pictures to document the experience.