The Triangle

Issue date: 3/6/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Westphal College

Media Credit: Westphal College

Media Credit: Francesca Martelli

The department of Cinema and Television in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design is launching a new television major, designed for undergraduates, to be built around Drexel's DUTV cable station.

According to the college's web site, the television program combines the resources of DUTV with an academic back-bone to provide students with experience in the development, writing, production, editing, programming, multi-platform distribution, management and promotion of television content. Students will have classes in the studio to learn about the industry, scheduling, programming and marketing.

Westphal College Dean Allen Sabinson said DUTV has two studios that, only a few years ago, were almost empty. The studios are filled with students working on various projects including UNIVERSITY 101, which is being featured in this week's DUTV Student Fest, and Off Campus, a similar series that will be aired on DUTV. One of the goals for the television major is to fill up the DUTV studios and to fill airtime on DUTV.

The program will also use Drexel's co-op experience to pair up with major network stations as well as local stations in Philadelphia.

According to the web site, starting this fall, television majors will be able to choose from three concentrations: TV news and nonfiction production, TV comedy and drama production, and TV industry and enterprise. The news and nonfiction production concentration will focus on the news and reality side of television, including sports and other newsworthy events. The TV comedy and drama production will focus on comedy and drama types of network primetime television. The TV industry and enterprise concentration will focus on the business side of television production.

The television major will continue the production of student-produced series Off Campus, The Daily Digest, and The Bruiser Flint Show, all of which are currently broadcasted on DUTV.

Minors will be offered in TV production and TV industry and enterprise.

"I think having the television major is a fantastic addition, and it breaks my heart that they're adding it to the program just as I'm graduating. If I were a freshman, that would definitely be my major of choice," Katie Nolan, a senior screenwriting and playwriting major, said.

According to Sabinson, the new major was approved only last week, but a committee of Westphal faculty has been working on the design for the curriculum since last year.

In today's constantly changing media society, there are a lot more employment opportunities in television rather than in film. In film, the director or project driver comes up with an idea, and others help to put it together. On the contrary, television production is a more collaborative effort.

"It was an absolute natural outgrowth in the already existing media program," Sabinson said.

Sabinson said Westphal's music industry program inspired the television major because of the similarities between students working with its recording studio and MAD Dragon Records enterprise and the television program working in the DUTV studios.

The faculty includes Andrew Susskind, who is an independent producer and director, as well as an associate professor at Drexel.

"The major will be a dynamic, future-oriented program," Susskind said. "The major will prepare students for wherever technology goes."

Susskind, who is the former president of Imagine Entertainment Television and a director of television series for CBS, ABC, UPN, and WB, will be the television major's program director.

Ian Abrams, another faculty member, is the screenwriting program director. Abrams spent ten years as an entertainment industry publicist and another ten years as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

Dave Culver, who is the general manager for the Paul F. Harron Studios and DUTV, has worked with NBC, as well as being involved in the design, marketing, and on-air look development of several cable networks, including The Disney Channel and the Arts & Entertainment channel. Culver was also the vice president and general manager of Center City Film & Video, Philadelphia's largest production and post-production facility for almost ten years.

Larry Epstein is the director of the Entertainment and Arts Management and the director of Special Projects for Westphal.

His career includes fourteen years in financial, technical and strategic planning roles in the CBS Broadcast Group in New York and Philadelphia.

Albert Tedesco currently directs the Paul F. Harron Graduate Program in Television Management and advises the Graduate Television Association. He has had over twenty-five years of experience in television and related communications fields. He was the founding vice president and general manager of WWSG-TV57, which was Philadelphia's first hybrid television station.

Sabinson has had a lot of experience as well. Sabinson has been the president of Production at Miramax Film and held senior positions at A&E, TNT, ABC, ICM, NBC and Showtime.

The Westphal web site says that Drexel is located in the direct center of America's fourth-largest television market.

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