Gail Davis Staff Writer Technology and creativity will have a common identity at CSUN when the new College of Arts, Media and Communication becomes official July 1. The new college will combine the theatre arts, music and art departments from the former School of the Arts, with the speech communication, radio, television an d film and journalism departments from the School of Communication, Health and Human Services. Dr. Phillip Handler, dean of the new college, says the distincti on between arts and communication has narrowed significantly in recent years and that combining them in one college will make CSUN students more competitive in the changing job market.
Communication is part of what the arts do.
Handler said that a Disney executive who met with administrators of the new college during a January retreat cited 20 examples of jobs that did not exist 10 yea rs ago. Another school official said Disney, Warner Brothers and other companies hire animators from abroad because of the dearth of American college graduates with the necessary skills. Handler feels integrating multimedia training and other technologies into the rest of an undergraduate education will better prepare students for employment in these fields. But now we can expand. Look at the Internet - there's a lot of junk out there.