By: NICK WORT
Staff Writer
New media students at IU South Bend have something to look forward to with the addition of two new academic concentrations coming next fall.
The two concentrations, one in video and motion media, and the other in interactive media, were pushed forward by Eric Souther and Sean Hottois, both assistant professors of new media at IUSB.
“It’s been four years in the process of trying to develop all the courses and getting them all approved. I think it’s going to take us in a direction that the faculty wants to take the program in. I think it’s going to create a lot of new opportunities for us,” Souther said. “I don’t know how many students have come into my office asking for courses in either animation or game design. Now, we should be able to at least offer animation, which can tie into game design as well.”
The video and motion media concentration will focus on video art, motion graphics and interactivity between different multimedia aspects, while the concentration in interactive media will deal primarily with web design and focus on the interaction between different types of multimedia.
“The interactive media concentration will be a full web design and Internet interactivity course,” Hottois said. “This focus of study isn’t widely available in our area. You have graphic design programs that have some web content and you have some two-year schools that do web design, but this will be full-fledged program.”
The concentration in video and motion media will bring a new full-time, tenure track professor to IUSB. This new faculty member has not been chosen yet, but is expected to begin in the upcoming fall semester.
“We are in the process of hiring a new animator. It’ll be a new full-time, tenure track position. He or she will teach some of the courses in video and motion graphics,” Souther said. “We have all the new 3-D printers down here too, so this program will probably take over some 3-D printing classes as well.”
According to both Souther and Hottois, there is a lengthy process that goes into creating a new concentration. Courses must be approved by a wide variety of officials both at IUSB and throughout the rest of the IU system. This process takes a great deal of time. According to Souther, the process for getting these two concentrations took almost four years.
“I think a lot of people don’t know that a lot of thought and effort gets put into every class that gets offered here at IUSB,” Hottois said.
Though the concentrations will bring in a new faculty member, both Hottois and Souther noted that the program will not be very costly to the school.
“The computers and equipment we have will get more frequent use, so I think we will actually lower costs, because we’ll be using the [equipment] more often,” Hottois said.
Though the process for creating these two concentrations is not fully complete, both Souther and Hottois expect the program to be offered beginning fall 2015.
For more information on the video and motion media concentration, contact Eric Souther at erisouth@iusb.edu. For information on the interactive media concentration, contact Sean Hottois at shottois@iusb.edu
