Film Department Reorganizes in Face of Low Enrollment

Several classes within Loyola’s Film and Digital Media Program have been indefinitely cancelled since the start of the school year to address enrollment issues within the program and other School of Communication programs. 

Scheduling changes began after SOC faculty noticed several existing film classes with numerous available sections, many of which only had a few students enrolled in them, according to SOC Dean Virginia McDermott who began her tenure last semester.

McDermott said very small class sizes, which sometimes arise when many sections of a class are offered, aren’t ideal for a film class since many require students to fill roles as directors, crew members and audience members. 

The low enrollment has led to canceling class times and transferring students to other mostly filled sections of the same class, according to McDermott. She said combining class sections allows film students to reap the full, intended experience from each of their classes.

“We need to schedule around what students need, when they need it and where they need it,” McDermott said. “That’s been kind of our guiding principle this last semester.”

In addition to prioritizing students’ academic success, Film and Digital Media Associate Professor and independent filmmaker Vincent Singleton said McDermott has also valued faculty members’ goals for the program.

“Dean McDermott has been very inclusive in her decision making,” Singleton said. “The programs have had sit down meetings with her to discuss not only enrollment and class scheduling, but also refining learning outcomes, as well as discussing our ambitions for the program and supporting us in that, so it’s been very practical.”

Fourth-year film and psychology double major Jillian Green said she had additional ideas to increase enrollment in the film program. 

The film program offers two tracks of study — Production and International Programming. Green said she thinks the SOC should avoid scheduling conflicting classes within the same track so students can take a greater variety of classes. 

Green said a directing course and a screenwriting course are currently offered 30 minutes apart from one another, one at the Lake Shore Campus and the other at the Water Tower Campus.

Green also said she believes the required load of core classes for film majors is excessive when coupled with required track-specific classes and university-wide core requirements. 

“I think sometimes, students just run out of not having time in their schedule to take production courses on top of the core requirements that we all have to take at Loyola, on top of the common requirements that we take for our major,” Green said. “Ultimately, you’re not seeing students enroll in those production classes because they don’t have room in their schedule, nor do they want to end up taking 18 credits to have a full course load.”

McDermott said many variables must be considered during the rescheduling process, such as which classroom spaces are best for a given class’ needs, when those spaces are used by other classes and time slots for when film equipment storage rooms are available. 

Since Loyola has only one studio space, only one class can be held there at a time. Many film classes require the TV studio in the SOC, so partitioning the times for when each class will use the studio can be challenging when coupled with other scheduling limitations, according to McDermott.

Singleton said the existing studio, located at the SOC building on the Water Tower Campus, is better suited to broadcast production than film production because of its lack of proper sound stages. 

An alternative is a large space which exists on the 14th floor of the Mundelein Center, where the Screen Directing class is frequently taught because of its ample volume, according to McDermott.

“It really is like a puzzle of trying to put it all together,” McDermott said. “And sometimes you don’t have all the pieces, and you’re trying to figure out ‘How do I make this work in a way that best serves our students?’”

In addition to rescheduling class offerings, Singleton said McDermott has worked with SOC programs to establish enrollment minimums and maximums for specific classes within each program based on the program’s size.

“With a film program that has around 170 students, to expect all of our classes to make at 15 to 22 students is a heavy load,” Singleton said. “Having the classes tied to the overall number of majors is really where that decision of enrollment cap and enrollment minimums should be put into place.”

Singleton said he sees an advantage to situations where a film class has fewer students than is ideal, as they teach students to adapt and restructure the roles to make a production work.

“Even as independent filmmakers, you find ways to utilize the resources that you have,” Singleton said. “Oftentimes you’re not fully staffed on a film with every department, and you find yourself multitasking. For instance, in my recent feature film that I just shot this past summer I was producer, director, co-writer, cinematographer, editor and director.”

However, the majors within the Film and Digital Media program require specific courses to be taken in a particular order. Singleton said he recognizes the inconvenience students face when classes within such a sequence are canceled due to low enrollment, since few alternative course pathways exist. 

Singleton said Cinematography II, another class he teaches, was canceled last semester due to low enrollment — the first time one of his classes has been cancelled in over 20 years of teaching. 

To support students who are inconvenienced by cancellations, Singleton said Film and Digital Media faculty are working with McDermott to create other learning opportunities, such as guided study, which gives students experience with the subject matter of the canceled class. 

Associate Film and Digital Media Program Professor and former program director Jeff Harder said the low enrollment within the film program may be partially tied to the soon to hit “enrollment cliff” — a nationwide decrease in college-aged students resulting in lower university matriculation, which would negatively affect individual program enrollment, The Phoenix previously reported. 

Singleton said McDermott’s meetings with SOC faculty regarding enrollment and class scheduling in context of student needs and faculty goals will help the film program combat enrollment issues in years to come.

“Having these systems in place that will ensure that we have the adequate amount of students in class is a positive step forward,” Singleton said.