Program History
Building upon funds provided by a Mellon Teaching with Technology grant, the Dean of the Faculty in the fall of 1999 convened the Texts and Media Development Project Faculty Seminar, soon re-named the Media Studies Development Project. Rapidly developing a group of approximately 25 core participants from a wide range of departments, and supported by a Mellon Foundation planning grant, the Faculty Seminar met regularly for more than four years. From its starting point as a broad conversation among colleagues seeking to explore a shared interest in the study of media, the Faculty Seminar developed into a valuable opportunity for faculty across the College to engage in cross-disciplinary discussions about a range of theoretical, substantive, and methodological issues related to the historical and contemporary study of media. This disciplinary boundary-crossing produced a rich dialogue characterized by both depth and breadth, and built upon growing faculty and student interest in the rigorous study of media, providing the foundation for the Media Studies Program.
In 2001, Development Project participants charged the Steering Committee with the mission of: 1) Defining the parameters of Media Studies as a multidisciplinary field of study in the context of a liberal arts institution. This process involved a multi-year series of public lectures, Faculty Seminar discussions, summer colloquia, and campus visits from colleagues in Media Studies programs at other institutions. 2) Identifying the range of existing media-related courses in the College curriculum, inviting faculty who teach about media into the programmatic and curricular activities of the Development Project, and developing content and pedagogy for a set of core Media Studies courses.
Media Studies is emerging as a new field of study in U.S. colleges and universities, but rarely with the disciplinary diversity, breadth of the definition of media, or commitment to theory and criticism that this Program takes as central to its mission. In part reacting against media studies programs based in communications schools or journalism programs, the broad definition of media in the Program’s mission statement reflects a commitment to the critical, theoretical, historical, and practical study of media. Its breadth also reflects a deep engagement with the study of traditional forms of media even in an historical moment marked by the proliferation of new communications technologies and the increasing centrality of global media in contemporary politics, economics, and cultural and social life. The program requires students to design a course of study that includes consideration of media practices outside of dominant industry settings, and to develop basic skills in one or more areas of media production.
As such, the Program’s mission articulates closely with the College’s principal educational missions: helping students develop a deep and broad knowledge in one or more disciplinary or multidisciplinary areas; assisting their mastery of a body of knowledge relevant to those areas; ensuring their acquisition of skills in the exercise of inquiry generally; working to develop their appreciation for historical and cross-cultural differences in knowledge; and promoting their attainment of a value on linking the pursuit of knowledge with a concern for society.
Media Studies moved from a Development Project to a multidisciplinary Program in the 2004/05 academic year. The Media Studies Program accepted its first group of student majors in December 2004. The first Media Studies major graduated in May 2006 and the first full class of Media Studies majors graduated in May 2007.