The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television will put its proposed film minor before the Undergraduate Council for final approval Friday.
If the proposal is approved by the Undergraduate Council, the school will finally be able to offer undergraduate students the first film minor, beginning January 2008. The minor will be available to 125 students a year with a maximum of 375 students in the program at any given time.
The program will be open to students from any major or college on campus.
“I believe film is an art form, so therefore I felt the rest of the community of UCLA should study it, even if they are chemistry majors or biology majors,” said Barbara Boyle, chair of the film, television and digital media department.
Students will need to complete at least 28 and at most 36 units, 20 of which must not overlap with a student’s other area of study. Students will be required to take classes in four diverse areas of film and media, such as history, aesthetics, practice and film, and media and society.
To apply to the minor if it is approved, students must have a declared major outside the School of Theater, Film and Television, have a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher, and have completed any two of the school’s film, television and digital media courses with a final grade of B or higher in both.
Students will be chosen from a committee made up of eight professors, including Film Minor Faculty Committee Chair William McDonald, who will also oversee the minor for its first three to five years.
“We have a feeling it will be a very popular minor, so we’ve … created a very nice menu system that can be a more practical approach or a critical approach,” McDonald said.
The proposed film minor comes two years after the school began a new initiative to open up more classes to non-film students, in hopes of one day possibly creating an official minor.
“There was a big undergraduate enrollment initiative,” Boyle said.
“We wanted to try it out before we jumped into the minor, so for two years, we’ve been offering undergraduate courses and they’ve been very. very successful. These two years allowed everyone to evaluate the load on the department for this additional student body.”
Because many film classes that will be included in the minor have already been open to non-film students in past quarters, the financial implications of the minor are minimal since the program will require no new instructors or courses. The film minor was already approved last Thursday by the Council’s Curriculum Committee, a move many believe to be a strong indication for approval at Friday’s meeting.
“The larger Undergraduate Council will certainly look to the Curriculum Committee for their evaluation of the proposal,” McDonald said. “We just have our fingers crossed that it will go through on Friday.”
Another issue of the proposed minor, which had previously been planned to start this past September, was the reaction of undergraduate film majors.
With only 30 students chosen every year after enduring an extensive application process based on GPA, essays and personal interviews, students in the past said they would lose the individual attention and hands-on experience custom to their major. However, film students seem to feel excited for their new classmates rather than threatened.
“I think that the absolute best thing is for as many people to take these classes as possible. There are many people who can’t commit to two years but would love to learn about film,” said Cliff Galiher, a third-year film student.
Before officially entering the undergraduate film major, Galiher benefited from the undergraduate enrollment initiative.
“I definitely appreciated the opportunity to take undergraduate film classes when I was not in the program. I already (took) four or five classes before I got into the program,” Galiher said.
An earlier version of the story had incorrect information about the number of students planned to be in the program and the maximum number of units required for the minor. Corrections have been made in the story.