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?

Syllabus Calendars for Media Studies

Media Studies Calendars:  Knowledge-Based, Individual... and Arbitrary

Because a syllabus is shaped by the prevailing mode of instruction, it’s probably wise to divide “Studies” from “Production” in a discussion of calendar creation.

Media Studies courses tend to be knowledge-based.  That knowledge is demonstrated  largely by individual essays, individual tests, and individual speeches.  Despite the occasional group project, the grade of one student infrequently impacts the work of others.  If Mary turns in her paper a week late, it’s no skin off Ethan’s nose.

Ferguson By The Numbers

Is Michael Brown a statistical anomaly?  Frankly, there's no way to know...

Many of my media theorist friends are wondering how to include coverage of Ferguson and Staten Island tragedies in courses next semester.  Perhaps they'll be aided by some of my recent digging.

THE LIKELY VICTIMS
Searching the CDC's Fatal Injury Database for deaths attributed to "legal intervention with a firearm," Bill O'Reilly claims that police in this country are killing far more whites than blacks.  "In 2012," O'Reilly says, "123 African-Americans were shot dead by police.... Same year, 326 whites were killed by police bullets."

But a ProPublica report sees it differently.  Three of its reporters suggest that young black males (age 15-19) are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than their white counterparts.  From 2010 to 2012, teenage white men were killed at the rate of 1.5 in 1 million.  Compare that to 31 in 1 million for teenage black men.