THE
SWINGING BRIDGE MESSIAH COLLEGE//THE PULSE
VOL. 94//ED. 1//SEPTEMBER 12, 2013
Advice for the First-Year Soul [page 5]
The High Center’s
Inaugural Season [page 4]
Photo Provided by the Messiah College Philadelphia Campus
MCPC: 1968-2014
First-Year
Games 2013 [page 12]
Responses to MCPC’s Closing and Motivations Behind It By Nicholas Tay FEATURES EDITOR
O
ver the summer of 2013, Messiah students, employees and alumni were informed that the popular Messiah College Philly Campus (MCPC) program was shutting down, effective fall of 2014. For many alumni of the program, this decision came as a shock and disappointment. One such individual is Jeremy Zimmerman, a participant in MCPC during the entire 2012-2013 academic year. “I’m obviously quite sad and torn up about MCPC’s closing and I remember that on the day of the announcement, there were many Facebook statuses and photos commemorating the good times and memories built during our time there. These great outpourings of love and gratitude to the campus came not only from alumni from my year, but also from individuals who were there years before me. It’s something that alters peoples’ lives and changes their time at Messiah. Zimmerman remarks that MCPC draws an eclectic group of people, all of who are of different majors. “We had a broad range of majors there last year, from education to math. ” But for Zimmerman, a broadcasting major, a major loss will be the lack of internships and employment opportunities afforded to film, broadcasting and journalism majors in Philly, of which he experienced first hand. “In the spring of 2013, I had an internship with Radio 104.5 in Philadelphia and right in the middle of finals week,
I had the opportunity to work on a giant show for the radio station – their sixth birthday show. I was able to visit my favorite artists – Phoenix, Passion Pit, Twenty One Pilots – it was great to be professionally engaged at a student level. I was made to feel invaluable as a member of the radio team during that show. Closing MCPC is like taking a big opportunity off the table, especially for certain majors specific to the communications department. It’s going to hurt the networking and career advancement opportunities for many students in the communications department. Zimmermann adds that MCPC’s closing will also lead to a lack of professional experience. “You’re looking at the loss of facilities and equipment that I feel Messiah won’t be able to replicate for another five to ten years. For example, Temple has two fully-fledged television recording studios, where you can shoot and edit a full video story in a sound studio. We don’t have anything like that here. It’s going to take tremendous front-end capital on Messiah’s part, especially in obtaining equipment, faculty, and part-time staff to effectively start and run what Philly had here.” Provost Randall Basinger, head of the prioritization committee, agrees that MCPC’s closing will be a tremendous loss to the communications department, but argues that due to economic difficulties the prioritization committee had to make a hard decision. “The main issue here is economic sustainability. The paradox here is that MCPC is a wonderful program, but it is economically unsustainable. It’s a real
loss. In times of prioritization, we have to make tough choices and this decision was probably one of the hardest I had to make. It’s important to realize that in prioritization, it’s easy to cut a poor program to save money. That’s not the case here. Philly did nothing wrong. MCPC was sustainable in a period of economic growth in society and at Messiah, as well as enrollment increases. When we get to a steady state or a loss, reductions have to be made.” Many students don’t realize that Messiah pays Temple all the tuition fees that the students at MCPC pay Messiah. Right now, Messiah loses money every year through this program because the tuition paid at Temple is higher than the tuition paid at Grantham. In a period of economic growth, we can afford to sustain those losses. But in a time of economic challenges, it’s hard to have an off-campus program with an overhead of three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars a year, without generating any revenue.
tions, new equipment and new employees. The dean and I are confident that even with these changes, the majors will be robust and just as effective as they were with the inclusion of MCPC. Some loss will be felt, but I feel that there will be gain by having the experience here.”
Despite the potential losses to these majors, Basinger promises that Messiah has dedicated resources to these majors and plans to integrate them into the Grantham campus.
While these efforts are promising, Zimmerman prefers to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. But he believes that the continuing option of Temple for majors requiring it benefits the students involved.
“My main concern during the prioritization review was to address the needs of the three majors – film, broadcasting and journalism – embedded in the communications department. Even though we’re saving a large amount of money by closing down MCPC, we’re investing a good portion of the money saved into bringing those majors back to Grantham. We’re committed to those majors and we’re currently in the process of developing these three majors such that they’re completely in Grantham. That entails facility renova-
“It’s great to see that Messiah has taken the right steps. Yet, at this point, everything is still rather vague. Until we see actual numbers – the faculty, the labs, the TAs – it’s going to be hard to say for sure how long it’ll take Messiah to develop the communications program at the Grantham campus. However, I’m glad Messiah will continue to partner with Temple in the short-term because it offers more resources, classes and professors. It’s good to see that they’re keeping that door open for now.”
For students currently in broadcasting, journalism or film, Basinger assures these students will be allowed the opportunity to use Temple’s facilities to fulfill their major. “Students under the old curriculum will be able to study at Temple. We’re making arrangements with Temple for our students such that those who need to finish their major through Temple will be able to do so. Only this year’s freshmen and subsequent years will follow the new curriculum, so we’re trying as quickly as possible to consolidate those three majors in Grantham. We hope to get it up and running as soon as possible.