Our Mission Statement: The Department of Film & Media Studies unites the inquiry of the academic with the practice and technique of the artist. Scholars and filmmakers work and study together in an environment of mutual encouragement and collegiality.

The affiliation of the Department with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of the Arts reflects a liberal arts perspective towards the study of film and media as well as hands-on production elements. We see film and media as ways of ordering, clarifying, and understanding human experience. We are humanists, sharing the general goal of discovering and putting into communicable form hypotheses about human beings and the world as they interact with it. We are scholars and practitioners, and our work includes the creation of film and media, teaching, and scholarship. As a result we serve our disciplines, the University, and the surrounding community in our capacities as teachers, scholars, and artists.