Outcomes for B.A., Visual and Sound Media

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Mission and Values

The Visual and Sound Media program and its concentrated areas of study empowers students to examine the complex relationships between media, society, and culture to best express themselves as filmmakers, artists, critics, and citizens in their communities or on a global stage.  The program is rooted in the liberal arts and focuses on the history, theory, and aesthetics of film, television, sound, and digital media so that students can express themselves as critics, as artists, and as citizens in their communities.

The program requires all students to complete courses in critical studies and media production.  Student learn a diverse skill set that allows them to work in the media industry, write media criticism, or prepare for graduate studies.  Collectively, the curriculum emphasizes that both media studies and media production rely on critical vision and creative insights.  Courses cultivate awareness and understanding by valuing compassion, social justice, human dignity, personal liberation, activism, and diversity and global awareness.  In sum, faculty seek to develop inspirated, ethically minded students who passionately engage our mediated world through critical and creative thinking.

Program Learning Outcomes for Visual and Sound Media Students

1. Define the specific terminology and language used in the critical analysis of a film, television, new media and sound media.
2. Identify the major figures, periods, and movements of film, television, new media history, and sound media.
3. Identify major trends and approaches in the development of humanities-based media studies as a discipline.
4. Develop a language to analyze diversity (i.e., race, class, gender, sex, nationality, disability, etc.) in film, television, new media, and sound media.
5. Learn the various forms of research and writing in the humanities-based field of media studies.
6. Demonstrate mastery of the aesthetic concepts of composition, editing, lighting, and audio through creative work.
7. Demonstrate appropriate selection and competent execution of aesthetic forms and styles.
8. Engage in critical analysis of their own and their peer's creative work.
9. Students will complete (create) at least one advanced film, video, or sound media production project and demonstrate the ability to engage advanced original and individual production work following industry trends.
10. Utilize organizational/leadership/management skills producing film, sound media, and video projects by leading a team toward a focused goal/outcome.