Mission Statement

The mission of the Department of Television and Radio is five fold:

(1) Non-Majors
(2) Undergraduate Majors
(3) Graduate Majors
(4) Faculty
(5) External Relations

1) NON-MAJORS

To prepare the general student body to be knowledgeable and socially responsible consumers of mass media who appreciate the media's role as powerful cultural, social, political, and economic institutions that significantly impact social relations -- including the formation of attitudes, values, and beliefs -- at local, regional, national, and global levels. The mass media are viewed as a broadly-defined sphere of communication distributed by electronic and other means to large, heterogeneous, geographically-dispersed audiences, and include ancillary institutions such as advertising, marketing, public relations, production, research and education.

2) UNDERGRADUATE MAJORS

To offer courses to its majors which stress both the accumulation of factual knowledge and the development of creative potential in the electronic media arts, including both production and performance skills. Courses are offered in a wide variety of media subjects including creating, producing, directing and writing television and radio programs in a variety of genres; electronic media history and criticism; media ethics; scholarly and instrumental research on media institutions, messages and audiences; media law and policy; general management; production management; and advertising, marketing, and sales. Extensive media externships are offered as part of a program of career development. The department's primary undergraduate mission is to prepare students to become creators, producers, and writers in the electronic media arts, and electronic media managers, programmers, researchers, and distributors. Additionally, the department seeks to prepare its majors to engage in the broad social policy debate regarding the social impact of electronic media, both as media professionals and as socially responsible consumers of media fare. Although the nature of electronic media production requires hands-on application and training with various hardware and software clusters/packages, the department does not see itself as a trade or technical school. The department is situated firmly in the liberal arts tradition.

Students who major in the department are assured of a comprehensive education through departmental degree requirements, while a ceiling on department electives for undergraduates insures majors will select elective courses in other disciplines to augment their chosen specialization.

A separate speciality in broadcast journalism for undergraduates requires a dual major in another academic discipline to afford students a well-developed content specialization.

Presently in development are an interdisciplinary undergraduate major in communications studies, and a minor in advertising and marketing (with the Economics Department.)

3) GRADUATE MAJORS

Graduate instruction is considered to be more specialized and intensive in nature than undergraduate instruction in order to develop the student's expressed interests.

The department has two graduate programs. The Master of Fine Arts degree prepares students to be creative innovators of electronic media programs. Students are required to demonstrate significant accomplishment for admission to this program, including submission of a portfolio of prior creative work in the arts and written creative or scholarly essays. Students have a rotating internship experience in most phases of electronic media arts production, studio and field operations and pedagogy as they serve as a cadre for the actualization of their own creative works under faculty supervision. Student-produced works are exhibited in the New York metropolitan area and beyond, and are available for classroom screening to other departments. The internship is offered in conjunction with the Television Center. The Center's mission includes using the MFA interns in the creation of television programs for both internal and external distribution. While most of the department's MFAs enter creative careers in the electronic media arts upon graduation, a significant number -- upwards of thirty percent, in fact -- pursue careers as university-level teachers.

The MS program concentrates on electronic media management and programming and has both a United States and a global perspective, the latter through association with the department's Center for the Study of World Television, in which MS students may pursue special research projects under faculty supervision. Reports detailing the findings of this research, as merited, have appeared in Almanac - the annual publication of the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Included among the goals of the MS program are (1) preparation of MS students without prior professional electronic media experience for entry-level management and programming positions in electronic media institutions; (2) enhancement of the specialized knowledge of electronic media practices that many MS students, currently employed in the industry, bring to the program; and (3) provision of the necessary scholarly research foundation for those MS students desiring to continue their post-graduate work in a doctoral program and/or pursue a career in teaching, as a significant number of graduates have done. Recent M.S. graduates have continued their scholarly studies in such major programs as those at The University of Iowa, Indiana University, and Ohio University.

In order to bring course offerings in line with shrinking economic resources, the department elected, in the early 1990s, to eliminate the MA, the MS in Broadcast Journalism, and the production concentration in the MS degree. While the department sees these offerings as valuable and within its mission, they are not in line with current budget realities.

4) FACULTY

The faculty's mission, for itself, is to provide continuing development of instructional excellence. To accomplish this, the department encourages scholarly research and creative production in all areas of electronic media and in communication processes in the belief that these activities ultimately enhance classroom teaching by incorporating advanced and innovative personal explorations in these areas into significant pedagogical frameworks. The results of the faculty's research are presented at annual conferences of the major communications scholarly associations. The current Television and Radio faculty have memberships in the International Communication Association (ICA), the National Communication Association (NCA), the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), the International Association for Mass Communication Research (IAMCR), the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), and the University Film and Video Association (UFVA), and in a variety of state and regional associations affiliated with the aforementioned groups.

The faculty contribute to the self-governance of the department, the college and university, and maintain contacts with industry professionals and other scholars, many of whom are invited as guest lecturers in both graduate and undergraduate courses. The Center for the Study of World Television has coordinated an annual graduate course in World Television which features guest lectures by leading international television professionals. Over the past five years, more than 70 guests have contributed to this seminar.

5) EXTERNAL RELATIONS

The department has a responsibility to serve the lay and professional communities through various forms of professional and civic leadership and expression at local, regional, national, and international levels.

The mission of the college and department are well integrated to take full advantage of the unique nature of the resources in the New York metropolitan area. Teaching, research, creativity, and service are paramount to the mission of both the college and the department.