“We felt that the timing was right to propose this major because many of the professors who teach film-related courses or strongly support film studies at Amherst are close to retirement,” said Parker. Additionally, the most recent Committee on Academic Priorities (CAP) report recommended that more resources be put into visual literacy and art at the College.
The CEP will begin to review the proposal this spring. In the initial meetings, the CEP, comprised of students, faculty and deans, will discuss the educational merits of a film studies major and identify any problems with the proposal. Next, the proposal will be forwarded to the Committee of Six, the highest-ranking faculty committee, for deliberation. If the Committee of Six deems it suitable, the proposal will be presented to the faculty for debate and a vote. Chair of the CEP Professor Martha Umphrey is optimistic about the implementation of a film and media studies major. “It is an exciting field and [some of my] colleagues who do scholarship and teaching in this area are working hard to have a major approved within the next year or two,” she said.
Implementation of a film studies major will require two new faculty appointments, new production equipment and, eventually, the addition of a resident artist who would also work with the fine arts and theater departments. Explained Parker, “The cost of production has decreased dramatically within the past few years, so it is now economically feasible to teach a class on the basics of digital camerawork and editing.” The College presently owns few cameras, and students cannot get permission to use them unless they are enrolled in an Amherst film production class. Few film production courses are currently offered, although a few film history and theory courses are scattered throughout different departments.
Thus, the Amherst Film Collective was borne out of this lack of support for film production on campus. Its founders, Alissa Ayden ’11, Alex Davis-Lawrence ’10 and Scott Yakaitis ’10, are eager proponents of sponsoring student film production. “Our club is dedicated to getting more people interested in making, writing and acting in movies,” said Yakaitis. Although AFC is not actively involved in the film studies major petition process, its leaders pursue their interests by writing scripts and making films together (using Davis-Lawrence’s camera). Both Ayden and Yakaitis expressed interest in being film majors; Yakaitis was compelled to instead declare an English major with a concentration in film studies. However, if the proposal is approved, the new major will be implemented in fall of 2009, making it available for members of the class of 2011 and succeeding classes.
Cameron, who has taught at least two film courses at Amherst every semester since the 1980s, said he has observed a change in academic culture over the past few years. “There has always been high student interest in film, but in the past, people just associated it with Hollywood,” he said. “Parents disapproved of this study as well. Thankfully, this biased view has changed.” Amherst has always offered a number of film-related courses within departments such as art and Japanese, but faculty members affiliated with the film and media studies proposal believe that the production component of film study should receive equal emphasis. “Bowdoin, Carleton, Swarthmore and Wellesley (among others)—all colleges with less than 2,000 students—already have film majors, so we looked at their curriculum and then tried to form our own unique Amherst program,” remarked Parker.
Only introductory production classes are available at Amherst, and the new film and media studies major would help students to improve on their basic knowledge by offering more advanced-level courses. Both Ayden and Davis-Lawrence have already taken most of Amherst’s “serious” film classes, so they looked to the Five College Consortium for opportunities to learn about film production. “Taking classes at one of the other colleges seems like an easy answer, but film production and screenwriting classes are extremely popular, and I’ve not yet managed to get into one at a different college,” said Davis-Lawrence. “In fact, many of the students in the class I took here were five college students unable to get into production classes at their own schools!”
One accessible resource is the Five College Film Council, which Cameron founded 20 years ago. It meets regularly at all five campuses to study film. A Five College film major was even introduced two years ago, and has been adopted by Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges thus far. UMass is expected to approve this major soon as well. However, Amherst did not join the program because of prospective plans to develop its own film and media studies major.
Davis-Lawrence ultimately hopes to become a film director, but he pursues his film interests enough on his own time that he is content with his projected English and American Studies double major. “Because of the lack of institutional support, I’ve pursued film independently as much as possible. Having a major devoted to film is important, because it would increase the number of production classes offered as well as the availability and quality of equipment to students,” he explained. “It would also encourage the various administrations involved with budgeting to take film at Amherst seriously, inside and outside the classroom.”