The Northerner Print Edition - November 11, 2009

D-IIs NKU ready to step up its game?

thenortherner.comNov. 11, 2009 Edition 44, Issue 11- Value: 50 cents

NEWS

VIEWSStudent Evaluations: How much influence do students have with evaluations?

A&ENKU Film School: With EMB and a growing student interest, it may not be long before the university gets a film program.

Cover StoryWill NKU go Division I? What it will take for the University to go D-I, and the steps its taking right now to make that move.

6 & 7

4 & 5

9

10

Intellectual Property Rights: Proposed pol-icy could give NKU right to use your work for self-promotion without your consent.

3November 11th, 2009

The NorthernerUniversity Center Room 335Highland Heights, KY 41076Editor in Chief: (859) 572-6128News & Sports: (859) 572-6677Features: (859) 572-5859Advertising: (859) 572-5232Fax: (859) 572-5772

E-mail: [email protected]

furtherdetailsEntire content is copyright of The Northerner and may not be reprinted without prior con-sent. Views expressed do not represent those of the administration, faculty or student body.The Northerner is considered a designated public forum. Student editors have authority to make all content decisions without censor-ship or advance approval. The Northerner staff respects the right to a free and open dialogue as allowed under the First Amendment.

PRINT EDITOR-IN-CHIEFTim Owens[[email protected]]

WEB EDITOR-IN-CHIEFJoe Castelli [[email protected]]

MANAGING EDITORMark Payne[[email protected]]

PRESENTATION EDITOREmily Teaford[[email protected]]

ASST. PRESENTATION EDITORKarli Wood[[email protected]]

VIEWS EDITORHeather Willoughby[[email protected]]

A&E EDITORJeremy Jackson[[email protected]]

SPORTS EDITORMichael Collins[[email protected]]

PHOTO EDITORCharlotte Etherton[[email protected]]

COPY EDITORSChelsea Asher[[email protected]]

Emily Christman[[email protected]]

Bettina Kemker[[email protected]]

ADVISERGayle Brown[[email protected]]

AD MANAGERWilliam Fisher[[email protected]]

northernerstaff contactinformation

EDITORIAL CARTOONISTPatrick Delaney[[email protected]]

Dan Robards[[email protected]]

Alex Owsley[[email protected]]

Brandon Barb[[email protected]]

Rodney Moore[[email protected]]

Justin Mattingly[[email protected]]

ASST. PHOTO EDITORSEmily Christman[[email protected]]

Ed Morris[[email protected]]

STAFF WRITERSSamantha Del Vecchio[[email protected]]

Michael Willis[[email protected]]

WHAT’S INSIDE

Apology from the Newsroom

In the last two issues, The Northerner ran an ad for a business called Resistance Re-cords. The ad was cut and dry. It listed all of the types of mu-sic it sells and listed it URL at the bottom. But after this past weekend, we found the intent behind the ad, was not so cut and dry. Via an inquiry from Channel 12 News, who got the tip from a concerned reader, Resistance Records is a busi-ness that promotes white supremacy. After investigat-ing the validity of this right after I got the call, I made the decision to immediately halt all business with Resistance Records. While it is not illegal to run ads of this nature, we at The Northerner see it as an ethical issue. We do not wish to be in business with groups or organizations that promote any form of racism, sexism, ageism, or any other form of discrimination. While issues of this nature are dependent on who runs The Northerner each semester, it was my decision that the paper, for this semes-

ter, will not advertise with this business or other businesses like it. That being said, I don’t want it to seem like I am mak-ing excuses. The fact of the matter is we screwed up. We should have researched our client better before getting in to business with them. I also want to take this opportunity to personally apologize to our readers for running this ad. We received numerous complaints about the ad and for those that were offended — I apologize. Please know that we did not intentionally mean to offend anyone and will pay closer attention in the future to the types of ads we run. If you still want to voice your opinion on this matter, feel free to submit a letter to the editor on our Web site or drop by The Northerner office to talk with me about it. Thank you for your continuing readership.

- Tim Owens Print Editor-in-Chief

Mark PayneManaging Editor

Who owns student work?Intellectual Property Policy up for vote by Board of Regents

NEWS

4 Edition 44, Issue 11

Let’s say you are a recent graduate of Northern Kentucky University. You got your degree in Photog-raphy and, since graduating, have been working on getting pictures together for a contest.

A few weeks after submitting your pictures to the contest you get a letter of rejection from the contest that says you were disqualified because your photo-graphs had already been published somewhere else and that they aren’t original works.

Come to find out, NKU published your photo-graphs for institutional promotion and marketing without informing you, and that’s the reason your photographs were disqualified from the contest.

This scenario is a possibility in the proposed Intel-lectual Property Policy that goes up for vote to the Board of Regents Nov. 11. This rule, in particular, states that students have the right to retain copyright and intellectual property of the works, but that the university can use the works for institutional promo-tion and marketing — the university can also enter the works into “appropriate competitions,” according to the proposed Intellectual Property Policy docu-ment.

This particular rule had the Student Government Association in a whirlwind during their meeting Nov. 9.

“I think because it’s something going through the administration that a lot of students aren’t going to be so informed on until the day comes where they do something, or write a short story, or a poem,” said SGA senator Laura Barrett. “ … I think it’s really strange to be entering into a contract like this with-out a student having the chance to really approve that they are doing it.”

Dennis Chaney, vice president of SGA, found the policy regarding intellectual property of students’ original work was flawed.

“It goes far and beyond,” Chaney said. “None of the other schools say, ‘You automatically grant this school license to reproduce and publish your mate-rial.’”

Chaney elaborated that it is implied at other schools, such as Western Kentucky University and University of Louisville, that the university will ask permission before using student works, which Chaney said is his goal.

“The biggest thing is that we just want to amend this policy before it is voted on, on Wednesday,” Chaney said.

Barrett agreed with Chaney about the policy. “I’ve done a bit of reading and it isn’t in UofL’s

and it’s not in Western’s,” Barrett said of the policy, which gives automatic rights to the university to publish student works.

SGA President Keith Kaseke is on the Board of Regents and will have the opportunity to propose the amendment that is being promoted by several SGA members, including Chaney and Barrett.

“The amendments I am going to propose are basi-cally for them (Board of Regents) to add on to their revisions that they need to notify the students if they are going to use any of their (the students) property, for what ever purposes,” Kaseke said. “It’s only com-mon courtesy.”

Voting by the Board of Regents will occur 1 p.m. at its Nov. 11 meeting in room 104 in the Student Union Ballroom. The meeting is open to the public.

Emily TeafordPresentation Editor

Flu shots aboundNKU offers students, staff vaccinations

NEWS


In 1976 a link was estab-lished between the H1N1 vaccinations and the Guil-lian-Barre´ syndrome, thus ending the mandatory vac-cinations, according to the Centers for Disease Con-trol.

This syndrome causes the immune system to be-gin attacking the peripheral nervous system and leads to paralysis and death. But things have changed since the 1970s.

“The vaccine is made ex-actly the same as seasonal flu shots just for this strain of the virus,” said Em-ily Gresham-Wherle, Pub-lic Information manager for the Northern Kentucky Health Department. “There have not been any reports about [Guillian-Barre´ syndrome] but the process for manufacturing the vac-cine has changed since the 1970s.”

Gresham-Wherle said that five companies who make flu shots every year developed the H1N1 vaccine.

In the past month, Northern Ken-tucky University has provided more than 700 of the new intranasal H1N1 vaccine to students and the general public.On Nov. 6, NKU announced that the

Health Counseling and Prevention Services would be offering the intra-nasal H1N1 vaccine to students and the public for a fee of $5. The main stipulation is that you have

to be healthy — persons with any his-tory of asthma, diabetes, immune dis-orders or other chronic illnesses are ineligible for the vaccine. Yet another stipulation to receiving the shot is that people with any type of egg al-lergy are not qualified to receive the vaccine. Both types of vaccines are cultured in an egg. Other stipulations are that you must

be between the ages of two and 49. Dr. Barbara J. Sween, the director of NKU Health, Counseling and Pre-

vention Services, said the need for the rules is because of the type of vaccine. “The intranasal vaccine is a weak-ened live version of the virus whereas the shot is not live,” Sween said. Health, Counseling and Prevention

Services was given 1,000 of the intra-nasal vaccines and have approximate-ly 300 left according to Sween.“The only side effect is almost like

a tickle in the nose or an urge to sneeze,” Sween said.The Northern Kentucky Health

Department is giving 8,000 vaccine shots for free on Wednesday, Nov. 11. People who are elligible to receive this shot are college students under 24 years of age, pregnant women and health care employees. The clinic will be held in the Bank of Kentucky Cen-ter from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Jordan Smalls, a sophomore English

major said he would not be receiving any of the H1N1 vaccines. “I feel like it is a marketing ploy,”

Small said. “I think people are trying to make money over it because it is in the media so much.”

H1N1 at a glance:

• NKU has had a total of 36 con firmed H1N1 cases so far. (nku.edu)

• Kentucky has been allocated 177,400 doses of the vaccine so far. (chfs.ky.gov)

• There have been 3 H1N1 deaths in NKY, and 20 statewide. (nkyhealth. org)

• 237 cases of H1N1 have been con firmed in NKY. (nkyhealth.org)

Are you interested in: web design, layout, writing,

editing, interviewing, and more??

The Northerner is hiring now for positions on next

semester’s staff.

Apply at: www.thenortherner.com/application-for-employment

What’s in the way?NKU has many obstacles to overcome before making a move to Division I

$4 Million- The amount NKU will have to add on it to its budget every year once it goes D-I

$800,000 - $1 million - The potential amount it will owe to the NCAA for the D-I reclassification process

2 – The number of years NKU has to wait before it starts the D-I reclassifi-cation process


Students, Norse sports fans and faculty are going to have wait a little longer for Northern Kentucky University to go Di-vision I.

It’s going to be a long road for the Divi-sion II school to make the jump, and not all of it is under its control.

Forced to wait“Right now we’re stuck in the moratorium,” said

NKU Athletic Director Scott Eaton. The moratorium refers to the proposal adopted

under emergency authority by the NCAA Di-vision I Board of Directors that, starting Aug. 9, 2007, puts a four-year halt on any school wishing to begin the provisional or reclassification process as a D-I institution.

“They enacted the moratorium because they had too many schools applying to be Division I,” Eaton said. “And those schools were putting all of their money into their basketball programs and treating the rest of their sports like second- and third-class citizens. We have to make sure all of our programs are supported equally.”

Aside from waiting two more years before it can start the process, NKU has other issues to address before it puts all of its eggs in the D-I basket. One of them is a “feasibility study,” which looks at how good the possibility of the move is, and whether it’s one NKU can, and should, make.

Outsourcing the study is Eaton, who is now looking at bids from outside research groups to conduct the study. But this isn’t the first time a D-I study has been done.

“Four or five years ago we hired an outside con-sultant to research the potential for us to go D-I,” said NKU President James Votruba. “The results showed we had two sets of challenges. One was having the proper facilities. The second was our operating budget being sufficient enough.”

With the addition of the Bank of Kentucky Cen-ter, the Student Union and the ongoing construc-tion of the soccer complex and Griffin Hall, both Votruba and Eaton expressed confidence that the facilities challenge has been — and will continue to be — met.

Dipping into the wallet“The biggest thing now is money,” Eaton said.

“Financially, we’re not ready to make that move. To do it will take more staffing and scholarship dollars. And given the state of the economy, no one has a good feel for that (the move to D-I).”

To make the financial issue more complicated, NKU will also have to pay a fee once it starts its reclassification.

“It will most likely be a six-figure payment,” Votruba said. “And we’re thinking it can be any-where between $800,000 to $1 million.” Votruba also mentioned that if NKU goes D-I, the move would tack an additional $4 million onto its budget every year.

“If the study shows we can’t afford it, then I’m against it,” Votruba said.

The potential move will undoubtedly be re-ceived with a wave of questions from all corners of

the NKU community.“It’s a huge investment,” said Jeff Waple, Dean

of Students. “Is this the right time to do this with this economic era we’re in? Do we have the capac-ity to handle the jump in enrollment? Are there better uses for that money? Those are questions people will be asking.

“Right now we need more class space, more practice space and more faculty.”

While Waple labels himself a “fence rider” on the subject, he does admit that going to D-I can bring a lot of good to the university.

“It will give us a chance to compete at the high-est level,” Waple said. “It would give us exposure, and student athletes an incredible experience. To play against UC, Xavier, Ohio State, the big-name schools … that’s what you dream about.”

Issues on the home front With a move to D-I and playing big schools like

Ohio State and Xavier, the university has another issue to address — getting people to actually go to the games. It’s a growing problem that has plagued Norse sports for some years now.

“I would be more inclined to attend games if we were Division I,” said Brittany Soper, a se-nior Marketing major at NKU. But Eaton feels as though attendance at games is already seeing a steady increase.

“We had just over 200 students attend a soccer game recently,” Eaton said.

He went on to say that the Bank of Kentucky Center is one of the top 50 facilities in the country, and thinks students will be eager to fill the seats when the Norse play some of the aforementioned big-name schools. And despite the huge financial investment Waple stressed, it and the positives that could come from the move are only one part of a larger list of matters to be addressed. The NCAA will be making known to every D-I prospect in the near future what it requires for acceptance into the division.

“They are likely to require more sports, and will definitely require a conference affiliation,” Eaton said. He said he has a short list of possible confer-ences NKU could join.

“The Ohio Valley Conference is a possibility, the Horizon League is a possibility and the Summit League is a possibility,” Eaton said. “It’s hard to tell right now what the best fit is for us. The study is a work in progress. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

While a move to D-I means a lot for athletics, Eaton emphasized the weight it carries on the in-stitution as a whole.

“It’s a total institutional decision,” Eaton said. “It’s not just athletics.” Votruba further empha-sized the weight a D-I move would have on the entire university.

“If it enhances the entire institution, then the move makes sense,” Votruba said. “But I won’t undermine our academic programs and services to do that. We have to make sure we continue to have an adequate investment in academics and degree planning.”

Not only does a move to D-1 mean more atten-tion for athletics, but it also puts a bigger spotlight on the academic standards at NKU. And it’s a spotlight Votruba already feels very comfortable

being in.“The university academic standards have never

been higher,” Votruba said. “And we’re attractive to Division I conferences on that basis.”

Even students who don’t watch NKU sports feel the university could stand tall in D-I based solely on academic standards.

“We don’t get as much credit as we deserve,” Brittany Soper said. “(A move to D-I) would be better for alumni and people who graduate from here who are on the job hunt.”

Other students see D-I as an image enhancer.Sophmore Sam Homer thinks the move will be

a boost to NKU. “Going Division I will add more credibility and respect to academics and athletics,” Homer said.

Can NKU compete?While some students and staff at NKU agree

that a move to D-I is something the university is already academically prepared for, others are con-cerned about the ability for the sports teams to compete on a higher level.

“We have one of the better facilities around (the Bank of Kentucky Center), but I’m worried about the talent, and if we can stand up to other D-I schools,” said Cliff Thoroughman, a senior electronic media and broadcasting major. But, as Homer said, the ability to compete will be a work in progress.

“It will take a lot of recruiting,” Homer said. “No school starts winning right off the bat.”

Eaton also seemed on the fence about the ability for Norse sports to compete at the D-I level.

“We are very competitive both in our confer-ence and at the national level,” Eaton said. “But D-I is a different story.”

When both men’s and women’s head basketball coaches, Nancy Winstel and David Bezold, were contacted about a move to D-I and how they think their teams would fare, they said they could not comment on the subject because, per Eaton’s rul-ing, all comments, questions and inquiries must be submitted to him only.

What’s to comeWhen the feasibility study is complete — which

Eaton said could take months — Votruba will have to present the results to the Board of Regents.

“We’ll look at the implications,” Votruba said. “I will have to fully understand, and the Board of Re-gents will have to fully understand, what it would take financially.”

So the issue has come full circle, and a move to D-I comes back to a matter of dollars and cents.

“I have to pay attention to the bottom-line,” Votruba said. “If a move to D-I for athletics in-advertently undermines academics, then I won’t allow it.”

But whether it’s a few years from now, or some-where further down the road, Eaton feels con-fident that NKU will be able to call itself a D-I school one day.

“Do I think NKU will be a D-I school soon — no,” Eaton said. “Do I think it will be at some point — yes.”

Tim OwensPrint Editor-in-chief

NKU has many obstacles to overcome before making a move to Division I

2 – The number of years NKU has to wait before it starts the D-I reclassifi-cation process 7November 11th, 2009

Mike CollinsSports Editor

Tim Downer/Sports photographer

The women’s soccer team poses for a picture after they defeated Quincy 1-0 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament. The team faces will face the winner of the match-up between Quincy and Saginaw Valley.

Championship march beginsSecond seeded women’s soccer team begins tourney play Nov. 13


SPORTS

The Northern Kentucky University women’s soccer team was selected as the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Division II Tournament. Six teams qualified from the region and the No. 1 and 2 seeds will receive first-round byes.

NKU will host the first and second rounds of the tournament, beginning on Nov. 13. The Norse (18-2, 13-2 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference) will enjoy their first round bye and then take their 13-game win-ning streak into the second round. They will see the winner of the first round match-up between Quincy and Saginaw Valley, playing at 7:00 p.m. on Nov. 13. The scheduled start for the second round is 1:00 p.m. on Nov. 15 at the Town and Country Sports Complex in Wilder, KY.

With that bye in the first round, NKU will have some extra time to prepare for second-round competi-tion. The Norse head coach Bob Sheehan wants the players to focus on the way they have executed all year and apply it to the tournament games.

“We’re going to be doing the same thing we’ve done all year – try to focus and pick up five or six coach-ing points a week,” Sheehan said. “We also want to ascend to a higher level and we feel like we’ve done that.”

NKU is coming off a 1-0 victory over Quincy (14-5-1, 10-3-1 in the GLVC) to claim their seventh GLVC title in team history. The win marked the first cham-pionship since the 2005 season. This trip to the ‘Big Dance’ is the ninth in the program’s 13-year history, according to the NKU Sports Information Web site.

Winning the GLVC championship is a goal that has been met. However, the team has another goal in mind. Last season, the Norse lost 1-0 to Wisconsin-Parkside in the second round of the tournament, and they hope to advance further this year.

“I think we’re just excited for the NCAA tourna-ment,” said sophomore defender Laura Painter. “We got this (the GLVC championship) and now we’re looking to get another one of our goals out of the way.

We’re looking to move on to the next step and tackle the NCAA and make our way to Florida.”

The Norse have already defeated Quincy twice so far this season, and it can be very hard to beat a team three times in a single season. The first time that the two teams met, NKU defeated the Hawks 2-1 on Oct. 9 at the Town and Country Sports Complex. The second time, the Norse defeated Quincy for the GLVC title.

As a unit, the Hawks are averaging 1.90 goals per game and they hold a .488 shots on goal percentage. This is a team that likes to get on the board in a hurry. Out of their 38 goals, Quincy has capitalized on 21 goals in the first quarter so far this season. They have held their opponents to just 14 goals.

Quincy is effective when scoring goals early in the ball game. On the defensive side, they get stingier throughout the game. Quincy has two goalkeepers that split time during games. Senior goalkeeper Tori Eye has collected 45 saves for the Hawks, and fresh-man keeper Tori Champagne has added 20 saves to the teams total. The duo have recorded 35 saves in the second half alone.

The Hawks have six seniors and six juniors on the roster, which gives them a solid core of experience that they can put on the field. Senior forward Jenna Boyko leads the team with 11 goals, freshman forward Brittany Casey and sophomore forward Aimee Ubria-co follow with six goals a piece. Junior midfielder Erin Conroy has five goals and seven other players have recorded at least one goal. Ubriaco is also the team leader in the assists category with five of the teams 29 on the season.

Defense will be an important factor to NKU’s success if they expect to advance in the tournament. Defense has been a strong suit all year long.

“The defenders have done a great job,” Sheehan said. “Rachael has been a major impact as a freshman as well as Elise in her second year and Laura Painter, Stephanie Wengert, Caitlyn Mueller and Kristi

Hofmeyer have all been fantastic. Emily Martin and Megan Smith have been involved the defense as well, so it has been a total team effort.”

Saginaw Valley State has 13 freshmen out of a 25-player roster this season. Despite their youth, the squad has earned a spot in the NCAA tournament. The Cardinals are 14-2-3 overall this season and they have scored a total of 41 goals, according to the SVSU Athletic Web site.

SVSU averages two goals per game while they hold opponents to less than one goal. The Cards have net-ted 26 goals in the second period, which has contrib-uted to their success. They have held opponents to just 13 goals for the entire season.

Senior midfielder Jacylyn Barrett leads the team with 12 goals, and sophomore midfielder Samantha Echols has eight on the year for SVSU. Three addi-tional players have recorded three goals and nine oth-ers have scored at least one goal. The Cardinals are unselfish with the ball and they have been effective with the passing aspect of the game. Four players for SVSU have five assists a piece. Sophomore goalkeeper Anne Berschbach has 68 saves and 10 shutouts for the red and white. It has been very difficult for opponents to score in the second period against the Cards, who have 37 saves down the final stretch of games. If NKU plays SVSU in the second round, they need to focus on getting the ball in the net early in the game. As the game progresses, it could be tough score a goal. How-ever, the Norse have displayed solid defensive play in the second period, as well this season.

Freshmen goalkeeper Rachel Wood believes that the defense in front of her has been vital to the team’s success.

“I love the defense I have in front of me,” Wood said. “They’re willing to lay themselves out in front of the ball rather than let the other person shoot. They’ve always got my back whether I miss it or not. They’ve saved a lot of games for me and I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

Heather WilloughbyViews Editor

Go beyond evals, take a stand!Student evaluations aren’t the best, or only, way to voice your opinion


VIEWS

For the first time in your life, you feel inspired to log onto eval.nku.edu to complete your profes-sor evaluations because one of your professors was a dud. Or perhaps your ethics professor was a genius and you can’t wait to let his or her depart-ment chair know how awesome the class was! You know what I’m talking about.

If your resolve wavers, you may be weighing the time it takes to perform the evaluation versus the impact your review will have.

I personally evaluate all of my professors be-cause I think it is very important.

But sometimes even I wonder how much influ-ence student evaluations actually hold.

The evaluations are very important and hold more influence than you might think, says Dr. Cady Short-Thompson, chair of the Communica-tions Department.

“I look over every single evaluation of every sin-gle course from tenured professors to non-tenured to graduate student teaching assistants.”

Within these evaluations, Short-Thompson said she notices trends for certain professors, and any marks below a 4 (on a 1-5 scale) indicate an area of weakness. Each year at their performance re-view, Short-Thompson said, she will call professors out on their negative scores, as well as praise them for their positive ones.

“We have a phenomenal faculty,” Short-Thomp-son said, “but every year we get some inappropri-ateness.”

When reviewing your professors, Short-Thomp-son said you need to “have the words.” Bad num-bers do nothing if they don’t have the comments to explain them. One downside of the evaluations, she said, is that you have no way of knowing who said what — so, if a serious problem was indicated, there is no way to follow up and find out more details of the incident(s).

The evaluations are not the best place to air grievances — students should meet with the chair of the applicable department and tell them what is

going on, according to Short-Thompson,.Or, if you are uncomfortable going to the chair,

NKU offers an Ombuds Service Team. Ombuds is a group of people on campus dedicated to solving sensitive issues.

This group “serves to help guide students through the University’s policies and procedures for resolving problems. The Team meets with students, hears their concerns and counsels them on how they should proceed,” according to the University and Student Affairs Web site.

You can find an Ombuds Service Team member in the University Center, Room 364, or spot some help in the Lucas Administrative Center, Room 838.

So, while reviewing your professors is definitely important, sometimes you should not wait for that end-of-semester window to address your concerns with how, or with whom, you receive your educa-tion. Take a stand — you have a say in this, too.

Jeremy JacksonA&E Editor


A&E

Unlike the celluloid that defined a century of motion pictures, the movies of to-day are captured by a higher technology, with digital at the heart of the trade.

And with the demand for that high technology, colleges and universities across the U.S. are adopting digital cinema and various cinema studies into their bachelor programs, with Northern Kentucky Uni-versity leading the way.

“NKU is as competitive as you can get with any school that is making movies in the midwest,” said Chris Strobel, assistant professor of Elec-tronic Media & Broadcasting (EMB).

Three years ago, NKU’s Radio & Television program made a demonstrative transfer in its namesake, shifting to the now familiar EMB program — expanding the discipline from radio broadcasting and television production to con-temporary areas of emphasis, such as digital cinema — which encompasses directing, producing and screenwriting.

“There is a great community of instructors at NKU, with a world of passion and experi-ence for film,” said Austin Brown, Sophomore EMB ma-jor and co-founder of Norse Film Society — group of students which views, critiques and creates movies weekly.

The curriculum offered through EMB is one of the most dynamic in the state, cre-ating a well-rounded student with the capability of working in many facets of the movie industry, according to Brown.

“I want to be a producer,” Brown said. “And after graduation, if I can’t find a job producing, the EMB courses will give me enough hands-on experience that I can, at the very least, pay the bills through other areas of media.”

With 200 major-declared students, the EMB program

is one of the prevalent dis-ciplines at the College of Informatics. And although fully equipped for the movie-making experience, according to Strobel, not all who gradu-ate will land that big movie-making job.

“They are not going to take Spielberg’s place right out of the college,” Strobel said.

Of the students graduating the EMB program with em-phasis on digital cinema, only a dozen or so will have the level of ambition and honed talent to make their own film beyond a college setting, ac-cording to Strobel,

“That is why we are trying to embrace media in all its aspects,” Strobel said. “I don’t think a degree in directing benefits students in practical way.”

So, if directing is not neces-sarily in the student’s immedi-ate future, Stobel insists that the digital cinema program will still better prepare the majority of EMB graduates with all other areas of the moviemaking experience.

“That is part of why our course is better than any other school in the region,” he said. “Especially when the Infor-matics building is complete.”

The Informatics build-ing (Griffin Hall), due to be completed in 2011, will offer state-of-the-art facilities for the digital cinema produc-tion, to include cutting-edge editing and audio rooms, as well as studios geared towards innovation.

Although NKU’s name is becoming synonymous with quality filmmaking in the region, there still exists plenty of competition.

But, according to Strobel, there are various other col-leges and universities offering similar EMB around the area have priorities that differ from NKU’s. Schools like Xavier University and University

of Cincinnati focus on the broadcasting aspect of media, or offer EMB courses that are in support of its theater department. According to Strobel, while other schools are focused on supporting live productions, NKU is “actually making movies.” And often, movies that are receiving some acclaim.

In this year’s College Movie Festival — an annual contest that judges student movies from 12 regional film pro-grams — NKU took home a series of top-rated awards, including the Audience Choice and Judges’ Choice awards for the independent student films Last call and DeadTV Crypts.

But unlike many other col-leges competing in the festival, Strobel said the EMB pro-gram is not a technical school, and therefore is centered more on “the story” and “tell-ing the story through writing and directing.”

“Before going to college, I did my homework on the best school in the area,” Brown said. “NKU offered the most comprehensive course for cinema.”

Aside from digital cinema, which outlines the inner-workings of directing and film production, the university also offers classes sculpted toward the analytical side of cinema in a cinema studies minor — which systematically picks apart style, genre, editing and sound within movies.

“The more you understand how movies are put together and how complex they are, it makes it that much more enjoyable to view them,” Said Dr. John Alberti, professor of English and initiator of the cinema studies minor.

Other areas that NKU is initiating to foster a more robust cinema experience in-clude next April’s French Film Festival, which will be made

possible due to a grant from the French government, and will feature five French-made films. Also, the Media Art Festival, which made its initial debut this October and show-cased local high school talent through viewing and critiqu-ing their independent movies, should become a perennial fixture to NKU.

Also available each week is the meeting of the Norse Film Society, which convenes every Thursday at 3 p.m. in room 105 of the Student Union building, and features a weekly viewing of a new movie followed by round-table discussion.

“NKU has a great location and a tremendous undercur-rent of professors who are well versed in every aspect of EMB,” Brown said. “They all really want to make each stu-dent excel at the moviemaking experience.”

Filming from different anglesEMB program offers more than the opportunity to be a ‘Spielberg’

Photo courtesy of MCT campus.NKU’s EMB program gives students the chance to work on film productions that range from a news broadcast to producing an award-winning film.

The Northerner Print Edition - November 11, 2009

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Transcript of The Northerner Print Edition - November 11, 2009