NEWS TO DANCE ABOUT New Concentrations in Theatre & Dance and Journalism & Strategic Media by Phillip Tutor
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EW ACADEMIC CONCENTRATIONS THAT BEGAN IN 2019 offer College of Communication and Fine Arts students a pair of modern options. In the Department of Theatre & Dance, chair Holly Lau has welcomed the first students pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre with a concentration in Dance Science. Meanwhile, the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media has added a Creative Mass Media concentration that will prepare students to become media innovators who can create content in a variety of formats. Dance Science is an interdisciplinary concentration at the University of Memphis that expands the possibilities for students. With classes divided between Lau’s department and the School of Health Studies’ Exercise, Sport and Movement Sciences, students seeking this concentration will receive dance training and skills in areas such as nutrition, biomechanics, exercise physiology and kinesiology. The goal, Lau said, is to train graduates for careers in a variety of related fields, including health and wellness advisors for dance companies and trainers in fitness clubs. The concentration will also allow students who take additional classes and degrees to pursue careers in physical therapy or dance medicine.
4 VOICES | UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
“We have had students in the past cobble this together on their own very successfully,” Lau said. “It creates a dancer who really is best aware of their own body and how to take care of their own self. Every single one of our dancers teach. People who dance teach dance. They are now really very skilled, careful, healthy teachers. So no matter what else they do in their life, they have this.” In the Creative Mass Media concentration, students will take classes in journalism, advertising, public relations, media design and photojournalism. With several classes cross-listed with the UofM’s Department of Art, students learn how to apply creativity to media production. Graduates could work as an art director for an advertising agency, a content
creator for a news organization as a web content producer, a media designer or a photojournalist, according to Dr. Matt Haught, associate professor of journalism and strategic media. “These classes aren’t new,” Haught said. “These classes have been on the books, some of them for 50 years. And these aren’t new concepts to media, but they’re newly organized for 21st century media. “We did this because we saw a lot of students wanting to go into media-based creative careers, and we saw that we already had the classes in place and we already had the resources in place. It just made sense.” The addition of a Dance Science concentration positions the Department of Theatre & Dance among a small
