'So many opportunities': How Ithaca's Park School entices comms students.

Ithaca College's Roy H. Park School of Communications is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year and alumni like Rich Newberg aren’t afraid to speak on the skills they were taught at the college over 50 years ago, but how does the school chalk up in today’s college landscape?

Financials and statistics

According to the college, the estimated cost of full time undergraduate tuition (12-18 credits) for the 2023-2024 school year is just over $50,000, with room and board tacking on another estimated $16,000. This totals over $70,000 per year before financial aid deductions, with the inclusion of estimated personal expenses, transportation and health insurance costs.

This cost is comparable if not slightly below larger private schools in major metro areas nearby, like Boston University, which estimates a total breaching $83,000 to attend this year, and is much smaller to boot -- teaching an average of about 5,000 students per year compared to BU’s 35,000 -- which is a plus in the eyes of Bob Regan, the communication schools Interim Director.

“At night here, our students aren’t usually sitting in rooms, they’re actually producing news, talk shows, sports shows, always staying busy,” he said. “We’re not in a big city, so there’s no distractions. It’s not like we’re BU, where I went to grad school, where you’re on the streets of Boston and get swept away.”

Finding focus and ditching fundamentals

Many Ithaca college alumni have opined on the early start the college gives them in terms of handling professional-level broadcasting equipment, even during freshman year. Regan said this is less than typical.

“As long as they get certified on a piece of equipment, they can sign it out,” he said. “Other schools, you know Syracuse, Emerson, they generally make you wait until junior or senior year before you start, you know, doing anything.”

“Most students here are drawn here because they’ve already been doing it, making films or doing television are their passions,” he said. “The basics, people don’t teach anymore because they already have them. Here you’re coming in as a freshman and you’re using, not your phone, not a small drone, but something that’s $30,000. It’s just different.”

Though the college may not teach the basics, it’s campus makes it clear that many of the greatest collaborations and productions start with a mere conversation.

Behind the Park School’s main hall sits a small area paved in concrete, with two benches dedicated to James B. Pendleton, who donated $17 million to the college upon his death, after meeting then professor emeritus Skip Landen.

“This little conversation area as we call it, is something we’ve made over the years with the help of a large endowment from James B. Pendleton, an interior designer who had nothing really to do with communications,” Ithaca College Coordinator for Student and External Relations, April Johanns said. “He was on vacation in the Greek Islands and came upon Skip Landen. They stayed in contact, and when Jimmy died, unbeknownst to any of us, he donated $17 million dollars.”

“Our thought is, and the students came up with the concept, it all started with a conversation, just staying in contact, talking about all of the great work that our students do,” she said. “When he passed away, Skip Landen did not even know and neither did Dean Bone, but we got a call from a lawyer saying ‘by the way Jimmy Pendleton left behind $17 million dollars,’ the largest donation we’ve received to date.”

Student organizations, productions

From 50-year Buffalo newscasters to the Sunday night football crew, Ithaca College alumni who work in the broadcast news or sports media industry today have said that ICTV was pivotal to their early careers.

In it’s 14 media labs, eight student-led radio stations, publications, and broadcasting groups create 18 to 28 student television programs per semester, produce a bi-weekly student newspaper, The Ithican, and get the chance to work with some of the industries latest and greatest technologies.

Opening the doors to one of the labs, Johanns motioned to Studio Manager Paul Stanion, who began tinkering with one of many computers tucked in back the corner of the room.

“This is a classroom, but when its not used as a classroom, it’s used for ICTV, our student run television network,” she said. “The concept of the show, acting, direction, cameras, everything is done by students. We of course provide amazing professional staff like Paul, but the students are the decision makers on what they do.”

As Johanns walked around studio 2, several walls changed from pure forest green, to an aerial view of the college’s campus, a common sight in student news productions.

“This is a cube, it is something fairly new for our students, and there’s not a lot of institutions that have tackled it yet," she said. "The example I like to give is, if you’re a Star Wars fan, in the original Star Wars, they’re overseas in a desert the elements, trying to stay on time; in the Madalorian, they’re in the desert, but they’re actually shooting in a studio. It’s a great resource.”

The technology is helps with teaching.

“Our students could basically be anywhere in the world shooting without leaving the studio,” Johanns replied.

Partnerships and programs:

Although they don’t need to leave the studio to get shots of a desert or snowy mountain, many Park School students take the leap anyway. About 20 of them have staffed NBC’s Olympic coverage since the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, and up to 120 go to Los Angeles each semester to intern in the nation’s entertainment and broadcasting capitol.

Johannes said that the college designed special courses for those covering the winter Olympics to come back to, considering they typically take place during the semester. As for the Los Angeles program, participating students are expected to intern with a broadcasting agency while they take classes at Park School facilities there.

“ICLA is our program that’s communications specific,” she said. “This semester we only sent about 40 students due to the writers’ strike, things were on hold because it’s an internship based program.”

“We have our own facilities, faculty, and staff there, and there are park school courses they’re taking so they don’t skip a beat,” Johannes said. “You have to be a Park (School) major or minor to go, but a lot of our students take advantage, and a lot of those connections turn to jobs. We have a huge alumni basis in Los Angeles.”

With all of these opportunities on their plates and potential job offers coming their way, Park School staff does their best to corral the career aspirations of its more ambitious students to keep the, on track for their degree.

“The opportunities are endless … but you’re a student first,” Johannes said. “We often have to remind students that go to LA of that as well, because sometimes they’re like ‘hey they offered me an entry level job that led from my internship, should I take it?’  No, no, no, please come back and finish your education.”

The college takes joint ownership over what is produced in its student-led media organizations, but. what’s produced in the classroom by students become the intellectual property of the student.

“We’ve had students take work that they’re pursuing in the classroom further because they want to pursue it post-college,” Johannes said, adding that it is common for many other institutions to reserve rights to content created by students in the classroom.

“That’s a big question I always tell families to ask the schools they’re visiting,” April said. "If you’re a production student, that’s a really important question to ask, because maybe you’ve had a piece that you’ve been thinking about for four years, you're filing our thesis, you’re going to get it done, only to be told ‘you don’t have the rights to that.’”

This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: Ithaca College: 50 years in communication