Banding Together
In spite of the remote learning plan enacted during the spring 2020 semester, Dyson College communications students completed a unique collaborative project promoting four Bronx-based punk bands. Students from three courses—Cinematography II, Writing for Print Media, and Public Relations Research—teamed up, and the result was a music video and PR campaign. Department of Media, Communications, and Visual Arts professors David Freedman and Louis Guarneri, and Department Chair Paul Ziek, PhD, documented the experience and have submitted case studies for several upcoming academic conferences. They are also planning future collaborations. “The class was truly experiential in that the students had to go from idea generation to completion with established musicians,” Ziek said. “We took away a great sense of pride as faculty. Not only did the students embrace the experience of working with clients, but they rose to the challenge and faced the pandemic head-on. They soldiered through and made the necessary adjustments in order to complete professional-quality work.”
Socially Relevant*
* From September 1, 2019 through May 19, 2020
Dyson College's Total Followers on Social Media
Top Twitter Post
Hayley Griffith* in Satanic Panic
Top Facebook Post
Candice Bergen’s Master Class
Top Instagram Post
Welcoming new Setters at the New York City campus’s Convocation
*Editors Note: the printed version incorrectly named Hayley as Harley
Instagram Impressions
Total engagaments across all social platforms
Minutes of Dyson College video watched on YouTube
4,560 minutes watched of the top video, “What is a Liberal Arts Education?”
Making an Entrance
Started as an idea in Clinical Associate Professor Jennifer Magas’s PR Campaigns class, the Entrance One public relations agency officially became a recognized student organization on the Pleasantville campus during the fall 2019 semester. “In only a few months, the members of the club planned, promoted, and executed multiple events and worked with my classes to create the content for the new monthly MCVA department newsletter, The Pitch, as well as our new department blog, MCVA OffScript,” Magas said.
Talking Points
Dyson College Faculty in the Media
“We need to have a certainty or confidence in our elections. This is an important institution we have—you know, the same with the judiciary, the democratic process. We have to have a way to guarantee that the votes will be cast and counted in November”
— GEORGE PICOULAS, lecturer, political science
News 12 (February 4, 2020)
“When you receive that email from the president about a grim financial forecast with words such as ‘lower profits,’ pay attention. If the email includes the line, ‘We’re going to implement cost-saving measures and freeze all hiring,’ dust off your resume and update it immediately.”
— JENNIFER LEE MAGAS, PHD, clinical associate professor, media, communications, and visual arts
“6 Signs You’re About to Get Laid Off” U.S. News & World Report (April 1, 2020)
“The traditional voyeuristic peephole in film suggests the person being watched is under threat. . . . The peephole makes the person looking through the peephole into the vulnerable one.”
— CATHERINE ZIMMER, PHD, associate professor and chair, film and screen studies
“Who’s Watching Your Porch?” The New York Times (January 19, 2020)
📚 7 Must-reads by Dyson Faculty
📖 The Portrait’s Subject: Inventing Inner Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States
Sarah Blackwood, PhD, assistant professor, English
An analysis of how nineteenth-century writers and artists used portraiture to imagine new ideas about selfhood
📖 Conceptions of Literacy: Graduate Instructors and the Teaching of First-Year Composition
Meaghan Brewer, PhD, assistant professor, director, Writing-Enhanced Course Program
An exploration of how writing instructors’ attitudes and beliefs about literacy determine how they teach writing
📖 The Remaking
Clay McLeod Chapman, associate professor, Actors Studio Drama School
A novel centered on how a ghost story can evolve along with technology
📖 Gender, Sexuality, and the Cultural Politics of Men’s Identity in the New Millennium: Literacies of Masculinity
Robert Mundy, PhD, (co-authored with Harry Denny), assistant professor, English
A study of mass media and contemporary culture’s impact on masculinity in a post-millennial society
📖 Everything and Other Poems
Charles North, poet-in-residence and professor, English
A collection of poems written from 2012–19
📖 Mapping Digital Game Culture in China: From Internet Addicts to Esports Athletes
Marcella Szablewicz, PhD, assistant professor, communication studies
A look at how digital gaming culture impacts citizens in urban China
📖 Silent Builder: Emily Warren Roebling and the Brooklyn Bridge, 2nd ed. (2019)
Marilyn Weigold, PhD, professor, history
Marilyn Weigold, PhD, professor, history
The true story of Emily Warren Roebling, who was instrumental in the design and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and went on to become one of the most renowned women in the United States
