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?

MFA & PhD: The Privilege of Theory

Good Grief.  Not everyone wears chevrons, Charlie Brown.

Nudged there by professors, the issue of privilege floats frequently to the forefront of classroom discussions.  White.  Male.  Abel-bodied.  Western.  Wealthy.  Heteronormative.  Unexamined.  Media-reinforced.  Encouraging students to question and define social norms for their generation is our duty.  It's also our pleasure.  We seem frequently to take delight as the powerful squirm beneath the light of examination.

But who might squirm if the same light were turned on those who themselves study Communication?  Who are the powerful among Media professors and administrators?  Who are the wealthy?  Which groups are favored by history?  How might we identify (and challenge) the privileged among us?

You're Doing It All Wrong

Stanford's Andrea Lunsford (L), one of five writers proving Everyone's An Author.

You know the place.  The vacant lot.  The backyard.  The driveway with a basketball hoop.  That neighborhood venue where kids congregate to play. Then along comes an adult who figures out the game isn't being played by FIFA or NCAA rules.  With the best of intentions, this mom or dad steps in to "improve" things.  They want leagues and brackets and sponsored jerseys.  Over time, 4th graders are playing for "sportsmanship" and "most improved" trophies.  And the fun of the neighborhood pick-up game is gone, stolen by people who invited themselves.

Why Colleges Can't Stop Rape

The law of unintended consequences:  Is Jeanne Clery the reason university presidents
can't stop rape?

MILESTONES IN CAMPUS RAPE  (The sad story so far…)

• 1957. American Sociological Review publishes Clifford Kirkpatrick and Eugene Kanin’s “Male Sex Aggression on a University Campus.”  Their article claims/predicts that college men use secrecy and stigma to pressure women in sexual situations. 
• 1986.  Jeanne Clery is raped and murdered in her dorm room.  She is a freshman at Lehigh University, an idyllic campus she and her parents had fallen in love with.  Though  Jeanne is initially interested in Tulane, she settles on the Pennsylvania school because it “feels safer.”

The Servile Arts

Serfing the internet.

Once upon a time, the world of education was divided into three spheres:  Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, and Servile Arts.  Fine (or “Beaux”) Arts means today pretty much what it meant when the phrase was coined.  Think of bohemians in berets on the southern bank of the Seine.  Painters, sculptors, poets, all making beautiful things.

Liberal and Servile Arts perhaps require a bit more historical context.  Imagine a bunch of rich lads in Genoa, drinking wine as they plot to spend their fathers’ fortunes.  Theirs is a gentrified world not unlike Downton Abbey (though predating it by at least six centuries).  Lots of leisure time for the upper classes, but with less indoor plumbing and more church attendance.  The fellows decide – more or less as a hobby – they’d like to know something about mathematics.  They pool a few ducats and pay some monk to teach them a little algebra.  Voila!  The University is born.

Avid, Apple & Adobe (Again)

Today's essay comes with a caveat:  We are always, always, always having this conversation.  Production folk don't ever stop talking about it.  I do not expect it to be helpful a year from now as the marketplace changes.  But because a colleague asked (she's on the cusp of a major institutional purchase), I'll submit some observations that feel true to me in the moment.

Our school (70 production majors at a liberal arts college of 3500) was firmly committed to Avid. The company had market share. They had ProTools. They had the edge in server-based file sharing. They had great student pricing. Then, in February, Avid stock was delisted by NASDAQ following some financial shenanigans. Even though they’ve been reinstated, I think institutions are (rightly) a bit wary of financial dealings with them.