Yeshiva College Introduces New Media Studies Minor

A new media studies minor was introduced to Yeshiva College for the fall semester of 2017. Spearheading the new minor were Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald, YC English Department Chair and professor, and Dr. Rachel Mesch, a tenured YC professor who was recently awarded a Public Scholar Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Both Fitzgerald and Mesch were enthused about this recent addition to the list of Yeshiva College minors, which now consists of 21.

The media studies minor, said Fitzgerald, was created to bring “together a range of disciplines that address so much of what it means to communicate in the 21st century as well as to negotiate the information we’re all being bombarded with on a daily basis.”

As for the demographic of those interested in the media studies minor, Mesch predicts that it will attract a diverse range of students. “It allows them to study traditional subjects from a new vantage point, and to pull together a diverse set of courses around these interconnected themes,” said Mesch.

Ari Kaye, a YC student who has already committed to the media studies minor, expressed his enthusiasm about the minor.

“I'm very excited for it - I decided to take this minor which seemed to be the next best creative minor,” said Kaye, who plans to go into creative directing.

Central to the media studies minor will be a new course in journalism offered in spring 2018 taught by a new writer in residence, tells Fitzgerald, who will give an explanation of the course later this semester. In the interim, students interested in the minor should be taking the courses currently offered that can count toward the minor including ART 2201 Color and Design, COWC 1026: Face to Face: Modern Identities in Film, INTC 1001: Books on Books, Films on Films,  INTC 1005: Parisian Views: Spectacle, Reality and the Invention of Mass Culture, ENG 3575: Approaches to Film, MAR 3318: Social Media, MAR 3320: Digital Media, and MAR 3323: Creative Advertising.