Template for New Minor

TEMPLATE FOR NEW MINOR

When developing a new Minor, please keep in mind the following:  No more than six credits at the 1000 level can count towards a Minor.  If you do not want any cross-listed courses to count in the Minor, you must specify in your proposal (i.e. Minor in Social Welfare and Social Development located in the 2014 Academic Calendar).  If including courses from another department, they will need to be contacted and approve (in writing) of their courses being used for the Minor.

Please refer to the Undergraduate Regulations and Information section of the Academic Calendar (http://www.nipissingu.ca/calendar/Pages/default.aspx) for more information.

Minor in: Media, Culture and Communications

Rationale for New Minor: As a faculty, Arts and Science needs to start charting new directions for itself and its students, leaving behind its historic role as a “feeder” for the Faculty of Education. The relationship of citizens to new media technologies enabled by the internet is a crucial dynamic to explore, both in in terms of academic analysis or critique and practical skill development. Since testing the waters with the Certificate in Digital Humanities in 2009-10, and seeing nine complete the Certificate, with three continuing their studies at graduate school, the English Studies Department has continued to ponder the possibilities of building this emerging area of inquiry into a program of study. As we already teach students oral and written communication skills, this program would only be a natural development of our strengths. The analysis of culture and media such as film, television, videos, popular/genre fiction, is already a part of our thriving Cultural and Media Studies Group (2). Drawing largely on this array of courses, and in collaboration with long-time partners, Gender Equality and Social Justice, we propose a “triple thread” approach to the Minor that weaves together courses from Digital Humanities/Culture, Group 2 of ES, and related second-year courses from GESJ. This would be an important first step towards a Major, and then, in collaboration with our sister institution, Canadore College, a Joint Program in Media, Culture and Communications. We envision attracting qualified graduates from cognate programs (i.e. Advertising and Marketing) to come over to Nipissing for two more years of upper-level courses in Media, Culture and Communications from ES, including Digital Humanities/Culture and Gender Equality and Social Justice. A new Certificate in Digital Culture in the Humanities could be a part of this package, offering interested students a “triple crown” of diploma, degree in Media, Culture and Communications and the Certificate. There is strong interest in such a collaboration from our partners, and we have a meeting planned with Dean David Himmelman, Dean Murat Tuncali and Registrar Andrea Robinson on October 31st. However, since this cross-institutional initiative will take time to implement fully, we are beginning with this “pilot project” on the Nipissing side of a Minor. Without taking very many resources, the resulting Minor will enable students to converse across disciplines and media, with a deeper awareness of their role as critics and creators of cultural texts: not simply passive consumers but empowered innovators and producers of the Twenty-First century.

Students must complete 18 credits in Media, Culture and Communications as follows: Course Code and Title Credit Amount ENGL/DIGI 2405: Digital Lives: Studies in Media, 6 credits Culture and Communication. GEND 2047 Gender & Social Media, GEND 2166 6 credits from this group Women, Media & Representation, GEND 2117 Gender & Media, GEND 2305 Women in Cinema, GEND 2276 Kid Media, GEND 2306 Art & Social TEMPLATE FOR NEW MINOR

Justice, GEND 3406 Queer Media. ENGL 3036 Topics in Media Studies, DIGI/ENGL 6 credits from this group 3047 Topics in Digital Culture, ENGL 3217 Topics in Literature, Culture & Sexuality, ENGL 3617 Popular Fiction, ENGL 3606 Popular Culture, ENGL 3126 Writing for Mass Media, ENGL 3127 Writing for Digital Media. Click here to enter text. Click here to enter text. Click here to enter text. Click here to enter text. Click here to enter text. Click here to enter text.

This proposal has been approved by the Departments of ES and GESJ, October 2014.