Correction appended
AU is creating a new master’s program in media entrepreneurship that will draw on resources from the School of Communication and the Kogod School of Business.
The program will aim to help students create their own media-related businesses or develop projects within their current businesses, said SOC Professor and Director of Writing Programs Amy Eisman, who will likely direct the degree program.
“There will be countless opportunities for entrepreneurs in the rapidly changing media field over the next five to ten years,” Kogod’s Management Department Chair Stevan Holmberg said in an email.
The degree will consist of 30 credits to be completed in 20 months. Graduate students will take classes once each week and once every other Saturday. The program is targeted toward local working professionals from diverse fields.
The program must receive the final approval from the Board of Trustees before Eisman can begin. She said she does not foresee any difficulties during the final part of the approval process.
“We expect that the program will be approved because we have been working closely with the University leadership on its development,” Eisman said. “But of course we want to wait for the signoff, which we expect soon.”
Eisman has been working on the program ever since she “picked it up” over a year ago from SOC Dean Larry Kirkman and Associate Dean Rose Ann Robertson. She credits them with giving the program its foundation.
A former media professional herself, Eisman understands the necessity of knowing not just about business but also how to manage it.
Eisman worked with Gannett for 17 years, eventually leaving the organization as executive editor of USA Weekend magazine.
“You may be working for yourself, you may be pushing a new initiative in a company or an association — you still need to understand how to do competitive analysis, how to grow a good idea, how to manage technology, the latest in media law and how to sell your idea to potential investors,” she said.
The Executive Director of J-Lab Jan Schaffer also helped create the program’s curriculum, and Eisman credited Holmberg as being the “entrepreneurial spirit.”
“The core coursework will focus on disruptive chaos in the media world, the realities an entrepreneur can expect in bringing an idea to fruition, the stages of building and launching a project, financial and technological management of new initiatives, building and engaging audiences and some digital competencies,” Schaffer said.
SOC professor Maria Ivancin plans to teach a course in the new program called “Managing Audiences-Advertising and Beyond.”
Holmberg will teach “Entrepreneurship and Innovation,” and Schaffer intends to lead the introductory “Seminar on Entrepreneurship.”
Kirkman will bring the program to the Board of Trustees before he steps down July 1. He said in an email that he does not believe his departure will affect the new program in any way.
Kirkman said he believes the new dean will continue what he called the “hotbed of media innovation and cutting-edge research” that was started when he came to AU in 2001.
“As everyone knows, our communications industries have gone through, and continue to go through, tremendous evolution,” Eisman said.
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The headline previous said the program was in news entrepreneurship. It is in media entrepreneurship.
