From Zero To 60 And Beyond -- PACE UNIVERSITY's Popular Communication Program Soars

(From Avid.com)

For DR. MARIA LUSKAY, Associate Professor in THE MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION ARTS DEPARTMENT at New York-based PACE UNIVERSITY, the most valuable training for future editors is provided by a well-rounded, four-year college education concentrating in media production.

She explains, "We're not a trade school. That's not our mission. [Hmmm, I've heard that before.] We're not just going to teach students skills and how to press buttons. If students are going to be editors, then they're going to have to understand the whole filmmaking process, including how to write, shoot, and direct. Even as directors or producers, they need to be able to speak the editor's language when they sit down in an edit session. We teach the whole package."

Part of that package includes the use of AVID SYSTEMS as part of a popular and growing MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION ARTS DEPARTMENT, which was spun off from the English department in 2001. Accompanying this departmental change was a major transition from old-school equipment, such as AN ABNER
A/B-ROLL EDITING SYSTEM and VIDEO TOASTERS, to the department's first digital nonlinear editing system, the AVID MEDIA COMPOSER. The system was so well received that six months later the department acquired a second Media Composer system to provide more students with hands-on access to the systems.

"If we're going to prepare students to work in the field," Luskay says, "then we have to teach them on equipment they'll be using on their jobs."

From Zero To 60 And Beyond -- Pace University's Popular Communication Program Soars