MFA & PhD: Questioning Equity

Some questions might help your department extend a previous discussion on the care and feeding of MFAs in your midst by examining whether practice and theory are really as integrated as admissions brochures claim.  As with any survey, you may expect anonymity to affect the answers considerably.

CURRICULUM

• Quantify the courses in an undergraduate Media Production degree.  How many are studies classes?  How many are production classes?  Does your Studies faculty consider that adequate?  Does your Production faculty?
• What is your department's course substitution practice?  If a senior on the cusp of graduation needs a production course that isn't offered, is her advisor any more or less likely to substitute a theory course?

TEACHING & LOAD

• Do those credentialed to teach Media Studies courses teach Production courses?  Is the reverse as often true? 
• Consider the prep time for a production class.  Setting out cameras and tripods can be compared to prepping for a science experiment.  Are lab aides available to your production faculty?  Does their teaching load reflect lab hours?
• Production classes are frequently longer than lecture classes -- but with fewer students.  Do professor teaching load calculations reflect that?
• Do the office locations of Studies and Production profs reflect the respective burdens of materials they might carry to class? 
• Are the offices of production faculty assigned in proximity to production facilities?  Does the location of production faculty offices make it easy for students to share with their teachers intermediate drafts of cinematography, editing, and audio projects?
• Audit the number of hours Production and Studies professors spend helping students outside of class.  What are the differences?
• What is the respective advising load of Production and Studies professors?  Do students -- sensing they need specialized advice in a way that perhaps the department doesn't officially acknowledge -- schedule "advising appointments" with professors who aren't their advisors?  Is either Studies or Production faculty more consistently disadvantaged by such a "phantom load"?
• Do Production and Studies faculty attend/host the same number of social gatherings with students?  Is that important to your department/institution?  Oddly, this is often a point of confusion.  Many schools participate in a nationwide first year survey.  Social contact with professors is valued by the survey (and consequently many student life administrators).  Even so, documents governing tenure and promotion are generally silent on the issue.

SCHOLARSHIP & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• At many colleges, Media Studies was established as a discipline decades before Media Production.  Thus, departmental policymakers for the newer discipline were often not themselves producers of film.  How is the voice of MFA/Production profs included in the departmental expectations for their scholarship?  for their promotion?  for their tenure?  
• Imagine a Media Studies professor's expectations for promotion include authoring a book.  What is the equivalent expectation for a Media Production professor?  Compare the cost (time and money) of preparing each.  If institutional grants are available for the researching author, is the same percentage of a given project's funds available to support the work of the Media Producer?
• Compare the collaborative expectations for research in Media Studies and Media Production.  Are there opportunities for students to intern with each?  What scheduling challenges are characteristic of solo research?  of collaborative/creative research/production?  
• Compare what it takes to stay current in one's discipline... not merely the number of hours, but also attendance at trade shows and equipment demonstrations.  Given a finite professional development travel budget, are Production profs made to choose between trade shows and academic conferences?  Do Studies profs face the same choice?
• Do Studies and Production profs have equal responsibilities for equipment maintenance or purchasing?  If not, how might release from classes or committee work be juggled for the sake of equity?

DEPARTMENTAL POLITICS

• The average age of your Production profs is likely younger than that of your Studies profs.  So consider the influence of senior faculty on junior faculty.  In political terms, do Studies and Production professors each equally influence the careers of the others?   
• In a departmental vote affecting primarily the teaching of production, how often are production professors outvoted/affirmed by theory professors?
• What percentage of your Media Studies faculty is tenured?  Adjunct?  Part Time?  How do those numbers compare with those representing your Production faculty?
• Where does Media Production fit on your institution's map of disciplines?  Is it situated with photography?  with drama?  with the fine arts?  with communication?  Often an emphasis on video and broadcasting suggests one philosophical model, an emphasis on filmmaking another.  What voice have filmmakers (both historically and presently) in their alliances with other disciplines on campus?

A fair number of readers (more PhD theorists than MFA movie-makers, I'll warrant) will shrug off these questions as inapplicable.  "Things seem to be fine in our department," they might say.  "We're all one big happy family."  But unless everyone agrees that you're one big happy family,  that happiness you hear might just be the same fearful silence common to any oppressed class.

Previously:  The Privilege of Theory
Next:  The Mathematics of Waiting