By Kylee N. McGuinness
Lancaster Bible College (LBC) announced the opening of a new department before the 2019 Fall semester.
On August 1, Communication and Live Production students and faculty received a letter from Ryan Geesaman, LBC’s Live Production Program Director, and Michael Freeman, LBC’s Communication Program Director. Geesamen and Freeman announced that the Communication and Live Production majors would be leaving their existing departments, Arts and Sciences and Music, Worship and Preforming Arts (MWPA), to form their own Communication and Media Arts (CMA) department.
“The main reason for this transition is to foster synergy between Communication and Live production: shared resources, courses, and faculty,” Geesamen and Freeman shared in the letter.
In an interview, Geesamen, now chair of the CMA Department, said, “It seemed to make sense to bring those two majors together under the same umbrella… so the decision was made that we would start a new department just with those two majors but with the idea that those could be split out into more disciplines moving forward.”
In addition to the development and expansion of both majors, the new department will also offer greater co-curricular opportunities for students as well as broaden their course selection. For Live Production, Geesamen said students are now able to take introduction classes within Communication versus MWPA which is a better fit. For Communication, students will be able to participate in Live Production electives without special approval, as they are now of the same department.
Abraham Riggin is a former Live Production student and current Communication student. Specific to radio broadcasting, Riggin was thankful for the intense technical training he received in Live Production and for the proper techniques learned in Communication. “Something I noticed when I switched to Communication was that there was less knowledge in a technical sense,” Riggin said. “Live Production focuses on the how to [in a technical sense] and Communication focuses on the ‘how to’ [in a practical sense].’”
As the majors merge, the two directors will continue to work closely together. Geesamen acknowledges Freeman’s achievements and scholarship. “I am excited to be working with someone who has that amount of experience in the academic realm,” said Geesamen. Considering his own background and experience in the “creative and professional side of the industry,” Geesamen continues, “together my background and his background hold a lot of promise for what we can do moving forward.”
Image source: Kylee McGuinness
Kylee N. McGuinness is a junior studying Communication at Lancaster Bible College. In her free time she enjoys crafting and thrifting.
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