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Detailed Information

Program of Study

Media art professionals are at the forefront of modern culture, helping to shape the way we experience the world. They are natural storytellers who are interested in experimenting with the medium through which the story is told.

The M.F.A. in media art empowers its talented students to develop their creative voice, working with image and sound to entertain, inform, persuade, and challenge. The program offers a truly integrated approach in an increasingly convergent media environment, using state-of-the art equipment and facilities. Students graduate with highly developed skills that allow them to work at advanced levels within the media industries or teach at the university level.

For more information about Emerson’s M.F.A. in media arts, prospective students should visit http://admission.emerson.edu/admission/graduate/academics/ma.cfm.

Research Facilities

The Emerson College library has more than 200,000 volumes, 20,000 journals (paper and electronic), 8,000 e-books, 10,000 nonprint materials, and 10,000 microforms in its collection that focus on the communication studies and performing arts. Through membership in the Fenway Library Consortium, graduate students have access to more than 2 million volumes. Computer-assisted reference services provide bibliographic databases through Dialog, BRS, and other online services. The Online Computer Library Center is used for student research support.

M.F.A. candidates gain valuable hands-on experience in the Media Services Center, which provides students with access to approximately 2,400 films, videos, laser discs, and DVDs. The center is the home of audio, video, and multimedia production facilities; a video studio; and several nonlinear editing suites comparable to those of any television studio in a major U.S. city. There is a marketing suite that features a focus group room with an observation booth, and there are also fully mediated classrooms.

Emerson’s production and postproduction equipment and facilities include nine digital audio editing rooms, two fully equipped professional television studios, three professional digital audio sound production studios (one with Dolby surround sound), twenty-eight Avid editing stations, digital mix-to-picture studios, a DVD authoring studio, multiple digital production labs dedicated to new media technologies, computer animation, Final Cut Pro video editing, and WERS, Emerson’s award-winning, student-run FM radio station.

Financial Aid

Emerson College offers several financial assistance programs that make graduate education possible: merit-based awards (domestic and international applicants), low-interest federal loans (domestic applicants only), federal work-study (domestic applicants only), private loans (domestic and international applicants), student employment (domestic and international applicants), and alternative payment plans (domestic and international applicants). For detailed information, students should visit the Office of Student Financial Services Web site at http://www.emerson.edu/financial_services.

Cost of Study

Tuition for the 2008–09 academic year is $886 per credit hour. Other fees vary and may apply.

Living and Housing Costs

Though on-campus housing is not available for its graduate students, the Emerson College Office of Off-Campus Student Services offers assistance in finding housing, including: local apartment listings, realtor lists, temporary accommodations, search tips, pertinent neighborhood information, a roommate networking service, and more. Costs for housing are comparable to those of rental properties available in larger East Coast cities.

Student Group

More than 950 graduate students representing forty-five states and sixty countries are enrolled in Emerson programs.

Student Outcomes

Emerson alumni are talented and successful media artists–conceiving, writing, directing, producing, and editing video documentaries, video narratives, interactive CDs, and Web sites. Among recent employers are America Online, AT&T New Media Services, AVID Technology, Circle Interactive, Fox Broadcasting Corporation, Hearst-Argyle Television Productions, Pinball Productions, September Productions, and WHDH-TV.

Location

Situated in the heart of downtown Boston, Emerson offers access to the vast resources of a city that is the home of the nation’s finest educational institutions and an international hub of culture, media production, writing, publishing, communication, commerce, and medical innovation. Boston is a career launching pad for Emerson’s students, many of whom intern or work at world-renowned organizations throughout the city. Emerson students from around the country and world absorb the city’s unique blend of local and global culture, and many find that Boston is an education in itself.

The College

Emerson College, founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson, has expanded upon its original mission of promoting the study of oratory and the performing arts by offering some of the nation’s most distinctive graduate programs in communication.

Applying

Emerson’s graduate programs welcome applicants from across the United States and around the world. Admission is competitive and selective. Emerson is looking for students whose academic and professional backgrounds, communication skills, and passion for the field meet the demands of their chosen program and promise a successful career.

The priority application deadline (to be considered for merit aid) for fall enrollment is January 5. The final deadline for all applicants is March 1. Applications that are not complete by the final deadline are not reviewed by the admission committee. Applicants are responsible for ensuring the completion of their application. Application fees are nonrefundable; application forms and supporting materials become the property of the Office of Graduate Admission once they are sent to the office and are not returned. Deadlines for merit-based and federal aid applications for fall are January 5 and April 1, respectively.

All application materials must be submitted together in one package to ensure a timely review. A complete application includes the application form (students may apply online or they may download the PDF version), the application fee ($60 for domestic applicants; $75 for international applicants), official transcripts from all colleges/universities previously attended, three sealed letters of recommendation (by persons best able to assess academic and professional qualifications, including motivation, goals, and potential), portfolio of media or other creative work, two essays, and a professional resume. GRE scores are optional, because the School is primarily interested in students’ creative and academic achievement and aptitude.

Applicants whose native language is not English must provide evidence of English proficiency by submitting official TOEFL or IELTS test results. (Applicants from India and the Philippines are considered nonnative English speakers and are required to take the TOEFL.) Emerson College’s school code for the TOEFL is 3367; no department code is needed. For more information about these tests, prospective student can visit http://www.toefl.org or http://www.ielts.org. Minimum TOEFL scores are 550 paper-based, 213 computer-based, and 80 Internet-based. The minimum IELTS score is 6.5. Applicants who do not meet this requirement are not reviewed for admission.

Decisions are made on complete applications within six to eight weeks. For more information about financing a graduate education, students should visit: http://www.emerson.edu/financial_services/info-grad.cfm/.

The Faculty and Their Research

• Michael Selig, Associate Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Northwestern. Dr. Selig has taught at the University of Vermont, Rosary College, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas. He has published in Screen,Wide Angle,Jump Cut, and other publications. He is a former editor of the Journal of Film and Video.
• Jan Roberts-Breslin, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director; M.F.A., Temple. Ms. Roberts-Breslin is an independent media artist whose work has been broadcast on PBS and has received national and international festival awards. She served as video director for the United Church of Christ in New York City and has taught at Temple and Seton Hall universities. She is the author of Making Media: Foundations of Sound and Image Production.
• Claire Andrade-Watkins, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Boston University. Dr. Andrade-Watkins, a historian and filmmaker, has published extensively on French- and Portuguese-speaking African cinema in leading academic journals and film publications including Framework,Research in African Literatures,International Journal of African History,Journal of Visual Anthropology, and the Independent. She is coeditor of Blackframes: Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema. She was a 1995–1996 Fulbright Scholar in Cape Verde, where she conducted research on indigenous cinema in Cape Verde. With a 1997 grant from the American Philosophical Society, she researched colonial cinema in Lisbon. She recently completed an award-winning “documemoire,” Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican, about the Cape Verdean community in Providence, Rhode Island. Other documentaries she produced include The Spirit of Cape Verde, a half-hour documentary celebrating the bonds between New England, Cape Verde, and President Aristides Periera’s historical first visit to the United States in 1983. She was an associate producer on Odyssey, a national PBS anthropology and archaeology documentary series, and assistant to the producer on Sankofa, an internationally acclaimed feature film on slavery by filmmaker Haile Gerima.
• Pierre Archambault, Associate Professor; M.F.A., Art Institute of Chicago. Mr. Archambault is a sound designer, sound art and music composer, and a performer of electronic music. Among others, his credits include sound design for the award winning CD-ROM, Exotic Japan, the BBC film Dear Nelson, and contributing composer for the PBS series Our Stories and Made-in-Maine. He also composed the music for the global art exhibit, C.O.D. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Savannah College of Art and Design.
• Martie Cook, Assistant Professor; M.F.A., Emerson. Ms. Cook has worked as a writer/producer for all four television networks and PBS. Her writing credits include Charles In Charge and Full House. Her producing credits include Entertainment Tonight,America’s Most Wanted,NBC Nightly News, the Today show, and the Emmy-nominated children’s show Zoom. Ms. Cook’s screenplay Zachary’s Truth was optioned by Universal Studios.
• Thomas Cooper, Professor; Ph.D., Toronto. Dr. Cooper is the author of six books and more than a hundred articles and is copublisher of Media Ethics magazine. He served as assistant speechwriter in the White House and, as the assistant to Marshall McLuhan, produced some of the first audio-spacebridges between the U.S. and Soviet Union. He has received many fellowships, awards, and grants.
• Pierre H. Desir, Assistant Professor; M.A., M.F.A., UCLA. Mr. Desir is an independent filmmaker and cinematographer whose work, including Zona,Compensation,Cycles, and The Gods and the Thief, has appeared at numerous domestic and international film festivals, including Sundance, Toronto, Amiens, London, Chicago, and New York.
• L. Marc Fields, Associate Professor; M.F.A., NYU. Mr. Fields previously taught screenwriting and production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the New School, and Concord Academy. A writer/producer/director of arts and cultural documentaries for PBS, his production credits include four years as a series producer for State of the Arts, a weekly arts magazine on New Jersey Public Television, and five regional Emmys. He is the coauthor of From the Bowery to Broadway: Lew Fields and the Roots of American Popular Theater, and is a frequent consultant for programs about American popular entertainment. For the recent six-part PBS series, Broadway: The American Musical, he wrote the scripts for two episodes.
• John (Craig) Freeman, Associate Professor; M.F.A., Colorado at Boulder. Mr. Freeman has taught as an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and as an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. His work has been exhibited internationally including at the Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta; the Nickle Arts Museum in Calgary, Canada; the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City; the Photographers Gallery in London; the Center for Experimental and Perceptual Art (CEPA) in Buffalo; Mobius in Boston; the Ambrosino Gallery in Miami; and the Friends of Photography’s Ansel Adams Center in San Francisco. In 1992 he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been published in Leonardo, the Journal of Visual Culture,Exposure,Artforum,Ten-8,Z Magazine,Afterimage,Photo Metro,New Art Examiner,Time,Harper’s, and Der Spiegel.
• Donald Fry, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State. Dr. Fry’s expertise is in mass communication theory, research methods, and media management. He served as Television and Film Head of the Department of Speech Communication, Wichita State University, and has taught at West Virginia University, Ohio State University, and Bowling Green State University. Dr. Fry has published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry,Communication Yearbook,Critical Studies in Mass Communication,Newspaper Research Journal, and Mass Communication Yearbook.
• Daniel Gaucher, Assistant Professor; M.F.A.; Massachusetts College of Art. Mr. Gaucher established himself in the production world as one of the original editors for the hit series, Blind Date. Since then he’s crafted a series of successes including 5th Wheel,Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Extreme Engineering. His work has aired worldwide on NBC, MTV, Bravo, A&E, UPN, Spike, VH-1, TLC, Discovery, PBS and the National Geographic Channel.
• John Gianvito, Assistant Professor; B.F.A., California Institute of the Arts; M.S., M.I.T. Mr. Gianvito is a filmmaker, curator, and critic, He has directed three feature films, including the award-winning The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, and has recently completed editing of the book Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi.
• Eric Gordon, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., USC. Dr. Gordon works in the fields of critical urbanism and new media. Before coming to Emerson, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML) at USC’s Annenberg Center for Communications, where he was codesigner of a software application called MediaBASE that allows users new opportunities for the exploration and manipulation of media projects. His recent publications include Towards a Networked Urbanism: Hugh Ferriss, Rockefeller Center and the ‘Invisible Empire of the Air’, and The Database City: Narrative, Interactivity and the Renewal of Hollywood Boulevard.
• Robert Hilliard, Professor; Ph.D., Columbia. Former Dean of Graduate Studies and Dean of Continuing Education at Emerson, Dr. Hilliard teaches courses such as Media Programming, The Media and the Holocaust, Hate.com, Communication Law, and Pictures of Protest. He was formerly chief of the public broadcasting branch of the Federal Communications Commission and chair of the Federal Interagency Media Committee for the White House. A frequent lecturer on media and education on all continents, Dr. Hilliard is the author of more than thirty books on communication, including several leading media texts.
• Tom Kingdon, Associate Professor; M.A., Birmingham (UK). Mr. Kingdon is a producer and a director. His credits include Masterpiece Theater and the BBC TV’s Eastenders, in addition to several other network drama series, children’s programs, and corporate programs. He is the author of Total Directing, which discusses directing camera and actors in film and television.
• Brooke A. Knight, Assistant Professor; M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts. Mr. Knight, an artist working in new media, has exhibited his work in more than twenty international festivals and exhibitions in the past four years, including Through the Looking Glass, Art Frankfurt, Medi@terra, Variable Media, Art Interactive, and Experimenta. Primarily working with the medium of the Internet, Mr. Knight’s main areas of interest are interactivity, language and meaning, and the landscape.
• Cher Krause Knight, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Temple. Dr. Knight is an art historian focused on modern and contemporary art and architecture. She is also a specialist in museum studies, with an emphasis on curatorial theory. She has published her work in a variety of sources, including Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, the Journal of American and Comparative Cultures,Visual Resources, and the anthology, Reclaiming the Spiritual in Art: Contemporary Cross-Cultural Perspectives.
• Cristina A. Kotz Cornejo, Assistant Professor; M.A., Antioch; M.F.A., NYU. Ms. Kotz Cornejo is an independent filmmaker currently developing a feature-length film titled Soledad.Soledad was a semi-finalist for the 2004 Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab and was in the script competition at the 2003 International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, Cuba. Her personal documentary, My Argentine Family, premiered at the 2003 Rhode Island International Film Festival and her digital short Ocean Waves, which has screened at the New England Film and Video Festival and the Boston Underground Film Festival, among others, received the Award of Merit from the University Film and Video Association. In 2000 Cristina was awarded a grant from the Partnership for a Drug Free America to direct Ernesto, which premiered at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. Her short film, The Appointment, developed under the advisement of Spike Lee and Nancy Savoca while Ms. Cornejo was a student, was awarded a Warner Brothers Pictures Production Award, a Dean’s Post Production Award, and three NYU Craft Awards and was picked up for distribution by Urban Entertainment.
• Diane Lake, Assistant Professor; M.A., Massachusetts Amherst. Ms. Lake’s film credits include writing assignments for Paramount, Disney, Miramax, and NBC/Davis Entertainment. Her film Frida opened the Venice Film Festival in 2002, was named to numerous 10-best lists for the year, and was nominated for six Academy Awards. She has also taught at UCLA.
• Jim Macak, Assistant Professor; M.F.A., Yale. Mr. Macak worked as an intern for Emmy and Humanitas winner David Milch and went on to write scripts for three of Milch’s shows, including NYPD Blue. He was also chosen as a Disney Fellow and wrote a produced sitcom pilot for Disney and CBS, as well as several TV movies for CBS, FOX, and Lifetime. He served as a staff writer for other TV dramas and the daytime serial General Hospital. In addition to his career as a TV writer, Mr. Macak is also a playwright. His plays have been seen at The Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, The Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles, and the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Festival in Key West. He previously taught at Chapman University in Southern California.
• Maurice Methot, Assistant Professor; M.A., Brown. Mr. Methot teaches courses in audio for new media, studio recording, and media production. He is a composer, performer, and media artist whose work is devoted to the exploration of sound both as a physical phenomenon and as a metaphorical device. He has performed extensively in a variety of venues ranging from the punk mecca C.B.G.B.’s to the Moscow Conservatory of Music. His work in experimental video has been screened at a numerous conferences and digital media festivals. His professional work includes freelance production for MTV. His projects are available on CD, cassette, vinyl, and on the World Wide Web. He has also taught at Brown University, Southern Illinois University, and Albright College in Pennsylvania.
• Kathryn Ramey, Assistant Professor; M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D., Temple. Ms. Ramey is an experimental filmmaker and scholar. Her award-winning films have screened at the Toronto International, Ann Arbor, Athens, Boston Independent, and Philadelphia film festivals, among others. In 2004, she was the recipient of a Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Fellowship for her works in film. In 2003, she was a Social Science Research Council Program on the Arts Fellow for her research on experimental filmmakers. Her most recently published works include “Between Art, Industry and Academia: The Fragile Balancing Act of the Film Avant-Garde” in Visual Anthropology Review.
• Eric P. Schaefer, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Texas at Austin. Dr. Schaefer’s primary research interests are film history, exploitation film, and other marginalized cinemas; popular culture; and postwar film and television. He is the author of a number of articles and the award-winning book Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959. He is currently working on Massacre of Pleasure: A History of Sexploitation Films, 1960-1979. Dr. Schaefer is also active in the area of film preservation and serves on the editorial board of the Moving Image, the journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.
• Jane Shattuc, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Shattuc has taught at the University of Vermont and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and was a fellow at Bonn Universität, Bonn, Germany. Dr. Shattuc is the author of Television, Tabloids, Tears: Fassbinder and Popular Culture and The Talking Cure: Television Talk Shows and Women, and is the editor of Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Cultures.
• James Sheldon, Associate Professor; M.S., MIT. Mr. Sheldon worked for many years as a museum curator and artist active in the media of photography, video, and interactive art. Recently he produced a number of interactive exhibition applications for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Currently, he is working on a series of online interactive documentaries about cultural landscapes funded by the Cultural Landscape Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
• Stephen Shipps, Associate Professor; Ed.D., Harvard. Dr. Shipps is an arts educator primarily concerned with the nature and history of “art” as a Western cultural institution, and how best to teach this concept. He has written and spoken widely about those concerns in both national and international forums. An award-winning teacher, he has been a Fellow of the National Endowment of the Humanities and of the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, and is currently Chair of the Education Committee of the College Art Association.
• Jean Stawarz, Associate Professor; M.F.A., Goddard. Ms. Stawarz has worked as a screenwriter, story editor, and associate producer. Her production credits include the award-winning films Powwow Highway and Henry & Verlin, and the television dramas Spirit Rider and North of Sixty. Her work has been screened at many film festivals including Sundance Film Festival, Montreal Film Festival, and the Munich Film Festival, and has aired on PBS, CBC, and the BBC. The Telluride Indie Fest named her original screenplay, The Sculptors, one of the “top thirty screenplays in the world.” She has also taught at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
• Jeff Talman, Assistant Professor; M.A., CUNY, New York. Mr.Talman, award-winning sound artist, has created installations for The Kitchen, NYC; the MIT Media Lab, the Basilica of St. Ulrich in Regensburg, Germany; Eyebeam, NYC, and others. His unique achievement in sound art is the reiterative resonance system in which the resonant frequencies of an installation site become the sole sound source for the work. The New York Times,WIRED magazine, and other publications have recognized this important process and work. Recent awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Award in Computer Arts and a Gunk Foundation Grant. Recent artist residencies include Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. Mr. Talman has directed orchestras and taught at City College, Columbia University, and Massachusetts College of Art. He produced and hosted a weekly show of new music, Airwaves, for six years on WKCR-FM, New York, featuring interviews, live performances, and the latest CD releases. He is currently represented by Bitforms Gallery, NYC.
• Robert Todd, Assistant Professor; M.F.A., Tufts. An experimental filmmaker and sound artist, Mr. Todd continually produces short works that resist categorization. His work has screened internationally and received various awards.
• Shujen Wang, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Maryland. Dr. Wang is a Research Associate in the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. Dr. Wang’s research interests include global film distribution, piracy and copyright governance, and issues surrounding space, technology, the state, and power. The author of Framing Piracy: Globalization and Film Distribution in Greater China, she has published in such journals as Cinema Journal,Film Quarterly,positions,Theory Culture & Society,Public Culture,Asian Cinema,Text,Visual Anthropology,Journal of Communication Inquiry,Gazette,Asian Journal of Communication, and Media Asia.

Correspondence and Information

Emerson College
Office of Graduate Admission
120 Boylston Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02116-4624
Telephone: 617-824-8610
Fax: 617-824-8614
Email: gradapp@emerson.edu