Faculty members at last Thursday's faculty meeting voted unanimously to pass a proposal to create a Film and Visual Media Studies major that, pending a review by the Board of Trustees in March, will be officially incorporated into the Brandeis undergraduate curriculum beginning in fall 2009. The major's proposal states that the "humanities-driven course of study stresses analysis of film style and content, film history and the relationships between cinema and culture." Prof. Alice Kelikian (HIST) presented the proposal at the meeting.

At the meeting, Kelikian said the program "focuses primarily on the history and critical study of film as art, as social document and as text."

"The truth of the matter is that students already here and students who might want to come here wish to major in film, and we have everything to gain by letting them do so," Kelikian said.

According to the Nov. 6 faculty meeting agenda, the Film Studies major will be offered "for an initial period of three years" and will then be reevaluated, along with the minor, by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee in 2012-2013.

The Film Studies minor was approved in 1994 and has continued to attract student interest. Prof. Matthew Fraleigh (GRAL), who is on the Film Studies committee, explained that "having interest from students and a very successful program helped us realize that it seemed like the next step to expand the minor into a major." Kelikian said in an interview with the Justice that there were 11 students in the program in 2006, but there are now 48.

Kelikian said at the faculty meeting that the film studies minor's growth "is as strong a sign as any I can think of that this is what students want and what we ought to offer them."

Lecturer in Film Studies and Director of Getz Media Lab Mark Dellelo, who is also the research and instruction film and media specialist in the library, explained "Now that digital technology has become so accessible, people are increasingly using a rhetoric of moving images to communicate with each other. I see filmmaking-or, more accurately, visual storytelling-as an essential literacy for the world we live in."

Adam Barish '09, an undergraduate departmental representative for the Film Studies minor, said, "Film is a part of our language and culture. It is absolutely becoming an academic necessity for any strong university because most universities are catching on to the trend that it is an academic pursuit that many students are interested in pursuing."

He said, "We are the YouTube generation. People want to study film."

Kelikian explained at the meeting that adding this major would not affect Brandeis' current financial situation, because it would "enrich our liberal arts curriculum and expand our undergraduate mission at little cost and without adding new resources," since the department has already established the equipment, facilities and technology required for the field of study.

Kelikian explained in an interview with the Justice that "the investment is already there. We have the faculty, the facilities and the technology." She explained, "We have the Getz Media Lab in the library and six high-definition camcorders students can use. We have the facilities to both edit and project in high definition film. . The Wasserman Cinemathaeque is the largest 35-mm auditorium of any academic institution in the Northeast."

The Getz Media Lab has 20 editing stations, all equipped with Final Cut Pro software.

"Final Cut [software] is becoming the new professional standard for movie post-production. The Coen Brothers use it. Films like Cold Mountain and 300 were edited with it," Dellelo said. He added that one can use Final Cut for "anything you can think of to do with special effects and motion graphics, color experimentation or any crazy idea you have."

At the faculty meeting, Kelikian explained that throughout the month, thanks to the Edie and Lew Wasserman fund in collaboration with the Los Angeles Times, five actors and actresses will come to Brandeis, including Richard Jenkins, Melissa Leo and Mark Ruffalo, all of whom are Oscar contenders. She explained that the actors are coming to screen their films, discuss their roles in the films, as well as talk about their histories in acting.

"I think it [is] no exaggeration to claim that we have the best cinematic programming of any academic institution in the United States," she said.

At the meeting, Prof. Steven Burg (POL), chair for the admissions committee, suggested waiving the second reading of the proposal, which is usually required as a procedural measure, because it would "merely delay adoption beyond current recruitment style," he explained in an e-mail to the Justice. All but three faculty members voted in favor of this; one faculty member opposed and two abstained.

Fraleigh said, "I think that the support [at the faculty meeting] was resounding and encouraging. It was very clear that the faculty are behind this.