The College of Arts and Sciences at Quinnipiac University is in the process of removing one of its programs.
The sixty majors within Interactive Digital Design program is going to be moving from its current place, over to the School of Communications. The work students do here consists of graphics, designs for websites and other visual components. Dean of the School of Communications, Lee Kamlet believes that this move is very beneficial for the school’s entire curriculum.
“I am definitely for this move because I think this is a perfect marriage of the kinds of skills that students need with the kind of skills that industry is demanding,” said Kamlet.
According to Kamlet, the move of the IDD program will happen over the course of the next year and it will be in place by the fall of 2015.
With the timeline officially in place, the decision will only be affecting next year’s freshman, sophomores and juniors. There will not be a change in terms of new classes that IDD students will have to take being under the new school.
To several students within the program, this move came as a total shock to them after they had no knowledge that this decision was made.
“I don’t know much about it,” said sophomore Kaylee Powers. “I think one of my professors mentioned it in class a couple of weeks ago, but that’s all I ever really knew.”
Current juniors, including Ashleigh Battle were also caught off guard, even after being in the program for close to two and a half years now.
“I honestly had no knowledge of this at all. I may have just vaguely heard about it in passing, but I really didn’t know,” said Battle.
Despite not many students knowing about this change in the IDD program, Kamlet ultimately feels that it’s a necessary move because all media skills are overlapping with one another.
“The buzzword around the communications industry is convergence where everything in the media business is beginning to come together,” said Kamlet.
While some students disapprove the major’s move, others, especially junior Hannah Schindler are excited for the new opportunities that IDD will now have to offer.
“I think it’s going to be really good and create new opportunities with communications, since IDD is a little confused from being an arts and science or being an art or communications major, but in the end, I think it’s a great decision made by the university,” said Schindler.
Interactive Digital Design students will have the 2014-2015 school year to prepare for the program’s future because as Kamlet says, more choices must be confirmed.
“There is still a lot of logistical things that have to fall into place and there will be some very minor, structural changes that will be made in the school itself and all those things have to be worked out before we can actually make the transition happen.”
Brochures for the program are now currently available in the School of Communications, so other students can learn about the program.
With the move likely becoming final in the near future, the major of Interactive Digital Design will become the fifth big program within the School of Communications, joining the programs in Media Studies, Journalism, FVI (Film, Video, and Interactive Media) and Public Relations.
