Mary Filice, Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of Arts, Entertainment & Media Management (AEMM) at Columbia, believes that her department "should be a hub around which the creative sectors of the College revolve."
While working for the entertainment giants, Will realized something was missing. “I wanted an edge,” he says. “I wasn’t any more marketable than anybody else.”
“I don’t know if I can capture how much the school has changed and blossomed; you feel like you’re at this place that’s both established itself and is still inventing itself. It’s never boring.”
MFA in Fiction student Jessie Morrison has “always loved to write,” but she also felt that she “needed guidance” to truly dedicate herself to her craft.
Although he has an affinity for the essay, the program Lazar designed covers a broad range of nonfiction approaches, including memoir, prose poetry, nonfiction film, and hybrid works that combine genres.
Sharon appreciates the balance the program finds between literary study and the student’s own writing. The program “features an intensive study of nonfiction writing and theory of nonfiction.”
Poet Tony Trigilio has had a long relationship with Columbia College Chicago—and Columbia has a long relationship with the genre of poetry.
Young decided on Columbia’s MA in Dance/Movement Therapy & Counseling, which she found to be the largest and most selective of the six nationally accredited programs.
"I always knew this was what I wanted to do, and now at Columbia I’m getting the chance to do it."
“My passion is putting good teachers into urban communities,” she says, “That’s really what I love.” She also appreciates the intimate size of her department and its innovative approach to education.
Jillian Swinford loves teaching art; she thinks it is a job that is “almost too good to be true.” It is her mission in life to “inspire others to love art” as much as she does.
Wenhwa Tsao, an award-winning filmmaker and educator, has a myriad of fascinating stories to tell, one of which is how she was first introduced to film.
“If you do something meaningful and good, your film will be good,” she says of her film philosophy, and she couldn’t be more right. Bae won the gold medal in the Documentary category at the 38th Student Academy Awards for her film Vera Klement: Blunt Edge.
"The future belongs to creative producers,” asserts Bruce Sheridan, Chairperson of Columbia’s Film & Video Department and co-founder of its new MFA program. As a director, producer, musician, former studio executive, educator, and administrator, Sheridan has been involved in the film and television industry for over 30 years.
Although Jeff Abell’s academic credentials suggest that his work might be easy to categorize, he chafes at the idea of being restricted to a single disciple. Rightly so: his master’s thesis performance had to be moved to the University’s theater department to accommodate the seven actors, live jazz band, recorded sound, video, film…and lasers.
For Justin Botz, the Interdisciplinary Arts MA program at Columbia has two great strengths: its community and its scope. He is happy to be working with artists of all types: dancers, actors, paper artists, visual artists, musicians and filmmakers.
"Breaking creativity into subdivisions is a learned construct; and while the magnetism of disciplinary orientation, with the convenience of established answers and traditions is alluring, mixing things together is in itself a rigorous practice."
Laura was looking for a way to integrate her interdisciplinary background with her interest in installation art when she found Columbia College. For Laura, the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media “was a really nice combination of being able to move into installation art, use different mediums, and continuing to make film and video.”
Potter’s work as a graduate student led her to numerous professional opportunities including at job at the famous Dieu Donné Papermill in New York, a collaborative studio that produces art in handmade paper. She also worked at the New York Foundation for the Arts before receiving a Fulbright in 2006 to design and build a papermaking studio at the University of Belgrade.
Maggie Puckett loves the juxtaposition of the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia, which features Book and Paper Arts alongside Media Arts. “It’s a conjunction of the medieval with the future.”
Barbara Iverson is not a fortuneteller—but she does have a demonstrated knack for knowing what digital tools are on the horizon for practicing journalists. As Associate Professor in the Journalism Department at Columbia, Iverson makes sure that the graduate Journalism program not only keeps pace with a rapidly evolving industry, but remains one of its innovators.
Devin Katayama admits that he’s “always had an interest in weird, unique people” and for many years he’s been on a quest to illuminate their stories.
"I only found a few programs geared toward film scoring, and Columbia was the strongest one I saw,” he says. “They have a really unique program and offer great internships.
Photography professor Kelli Connell was drawn to Columbia College Chicago by the strength of its alumni. At a photography conference, Kelli attended a panel discussion featuring recent alumni of the MFA program—Matt Seiber, Brian Ullrich, and Jon Gittlesen.
Jason’s work is on a two-year loan as part of the MoCP’s Midwest Photographers Project. He also had two solo shows at the Rotunda Gallery at Roosevelt University and at AVA Gallery in Chattanooga, TN.