A New Name

If you look at the roots of it "tele" and "dramatic" you know tele means "at a distance" so I guess, communicating drama at a distance? for me it always made it sound more like radio or television. The original name of the department was, "The Teledramatic Arts and Technology" originally "institute" then "department". Over time it was felt that the word "teledramatic" was confusing to people. Both, incoming students who really didn't know where to find what they're looking for they're looking for a film program, or a theater program, or a mass com program. They wouldn't necessarily search, "Teledramatic" So to a certain extent, people coming in didn't know what we were. and it was also felt that it was hard to explain to people, potential jobs, graduate programs there was a belief that it was hard to explain what that meant what you had actually learned When the university was founded there was a push to separate it and make it different from other institutions so they created this neologism If you go to enough of these things and you're explaining it all the time and it's like, you get to the point where you're like, we need a different name It's just not sustainable Everybody understood that it was a word that wasn't used in the general vocabulary I think the idea of the word Teledramatic was a good idea it was a belief by Luis Valdez, who created the term to create a department that encompassed both a respect for the theatrical history the traditional history of storytelling that came out of the incredibly long history of theater and applied that understanding in a number of new technologies and the truth is that if you tell people that you have a major in Cinematic Arts you don't have to explain what that means I thought it was really important to maintain at least the word "Arts" in Cinematic Arts to continue, a bit, that sense of an umbrella program that has, people who are interested in theater, people who are interested in radio, people who are interested in television, a lot of students end up working in television anyway The freshmen coming in this year and next are going to know it is cinematic arts by the time they graduate, it'll be cinematic arts and TAT may have faded by then It's like, "I have come" "from the clouds" "My master..." "The Oracle of Clarity has come!" "What does he say?" "He says you guys need a name change"