One-year program with 25 elective credit certificate to open on Verde Campus
A one-year film, media and arts program is scheduled to open sometime next year on the Verde Campus, according to a story in the Verde Independent. (The newspaper story can be accessed by clicking here.)
The program will offer screenwriting, video editing, YouTube storytelling and monetization, production, editing and writing for film. Students will receive a certificate after completing the one-year program. The certificate is equivalent to 25 elective college credits. The College says that it is “trying to get the film culture going around here.”
In the newspaper story, the College justified closing the nationally recognized Film School at the Sedona Center because Sedona “didn’t have a lot of students.” This explanation is political tripe generated by the College to provide a smoke screen over its real intentions. After all, the Center didn’t have a lot of students because the College announced a year before closing the program it wasn’t accepting any new students.
Also in the newspaper account, the College uses as an excuse to not put the program in Sedona, where it belongs, that if it did so, the “OLLI program . . . would have to be cut to make way for the film program if it stayed at the Sedona Center.” This is more political tripe. For those who have paid any attention at all to the Sedona Center, they know as a fact that both OLLI and the Film School co-existed in the Center for several years before the College decided to close out the Film school over a year ago. The College never used as a political excuse when it announced the closing that space at the Center was an issue. Rather, it claimed low enrollment (that it created) and a huge subsidy (which, when requested to provide in detail, it could not). The reason the College was so anxious to get rid of the Film School was to make way for the possible sale of the Center and its land to supply large amounts of cash to finance the College’s ever-hungry multi-million dollar renovation and expansion projects on the West side of the County.