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THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COMMENTARY
Film school dean doubles as 'Smurfs' director
PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
LOS ANGELES — Veteran movie producer Jordan Kerner spent nearly 10 years finding a way to make "The Smurfs," which earned $35.6 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. But it's not his long track record in Hollywood, which includes producing everything from "Less Than Zero"
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UNCSA are getting an education not just in theory and production but in the often less-than-glamorous aspects of life in the trenches of Hollywood.
Kerner has recruited a host of faculty members who still have their day jobs, which helps give students a grounding in the kind of problem-solving necessary to survive on a film set. Through a shadowing program, students get
My biggest concern with today's film schools is that they tend to offer students far more instruction in technique than in actual ideas.
"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked," which will hit theaters this Christmas. He also has his students listen in on his conversations with his agent so they can develop an understanding of the demands of the marketplace.
up to talk to an actor, our kids would be right there with him. They also got to spend time with our editors, visual effects supervisor, sound designers and other crew members. Sometimes the discussions were difficult, but that was the whole point — it's a way to learn the whys and why nots of filmmaking." (With it being 2011, students had to sign release forms promising not to blog about what
Kerner never imagined himself being a film school dean — in fact, he never went to film school himself. But after surviving a freak staph infection and enduring the
their experiences. But Kerner felt the school needed more outside professionals on the faculty, so he recruited a host of industry pros, including producer Bob Gosse and Peter Bogdanovich, who teaches a freshman film class.
But the student films I watched
Immersion project, where students gain a deeper understanding of character and story by spending several weeks at places like the Veterans Artificial Limb Hospital in Philadelphia and Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans.
"The they can't take cameras or recording devices — just a pad and pen," he says. "The whole idea is to go out and get to know people, hear their stories and get under
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 24
CAMPUS
Past two years were overall positive for chancellor
WESTON PLETCHER editor@kansan.com
Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little took a few minutes out of her day to talk about the University of Kansas
and how her first two years have gone. Gray-Little is entering her third year at Kansas and seems optimistic about the future for the university.
Gray-Little
How are things going? Are you making the progress that you hoped you would have so far?
"Things are going well. I'll start my third year on Aug. 15. During the last two years we've started a number of programs and initiatives that I think we're making really good progress on. So, yes I am pleased with the progress we're making."
What do you think the biggest challenge has been so far?
"This is a time where we have limited resources or fewer resources, even in some instances than in the past, and yet it's also very important to make
progress. So, the challenge is how do you do something and do something better when you have the same or fewer resources than you did before? In a general way that's the challenge and I can give you an example. We have not, at the Lawrence campus for example, hired faculty at the same rate that we did in the past and yet we're trying to not only maintain outstanding teaching, but raise the productivity of the university in terms of faculty research and scholarship. That's sort of hard to do when you have fewer people. So that's the kind of challenge that we face."
Has anything surprised you during your first two years?
"Sometimes I say that I've been surprised by some of the programs and the quality of some of the programs that I just didn't know about such as the School of Music program, which is really outstanding."
Can you talk about the Strategic Plan and the purpose of the plan?
"The Strategic Plan for the university is an effort to take stock of where you are as a university and where you should be investing. There are many things that go on at the university,
whether it's the Lawrence campus or the Medical Center, and many of those things have been going well for years. Many of them are just continuous so the goal is to say, well it is this really doing well enough that we should continue investing in it? Should we move our resources and invest in something
else? Is there something new that we haven't been doing that we want to try? In the case of this, is not so much a part of the planning effort, but one of the things we'll be working on is a curriculum revision for the undergraduate curriculum. The
There are some new members to the Board of Regents. Does that change the dimension of what you are trying to accomplish here?
"I don't know that it changes internal things that we're trying to do very much and I have not had interactions
"I think our new enrollment of students for this year is not down. The overall enrollment we'll see how that turns out."
curriculum hasn't been changed in a comprehensive way for more than two decades. So, we're looking at does our curriculum have the right content? Is it structured in the right way? What kind of things we should be doing? So in accessing where we are, what changes need to be made and to make sure that we put our energy into making the changes and moving in the direction we need to move in. That's true for planning wherever it occurs."
BERNADETTE GRAY-LITTLE chancellor
with the new board members, as regents. I've met two of them and will meet the third soon, but I haven't seen what they will be like as regents. I'm looking forward to having them on the board."
increasing and enrollment numbers where they are, what initiatives are being taken?
"I think our new enrollment of students for this year is not down. The overall enrollment we'll see how that turns out. It may not be very much change, but I think that in this time and in this region enrollment is a challenge because the population is not growing. I think over the next several years most of the universities
in our area will be looking at enrollment and what is the right size and the appropriate programs. So, that is something we will continually assess. With regards to tuition, the tuition increases are natural anyway because things go up. But, I think our tuition increase here certainly had been influenced directly or indirectly by some of the cuts in state funding and as we lose resources in one area we have to look for them in terms of tuition and in terms of fundraising and raise the other sources that we use to get resources offered by the programs I mentioned before. It goes back to the fundamental issue that I mentioned before of how to gather resources you need to do things and to do them better. Occasionally, you can do better with less, but it is a pretty hard thing to do. Usually you need the same or more funding."
"I think it's going to be very exciting. We will have made progress on getting the broad outlines of the overall strategic plan. You may know that we have been involved this summer in having some external consultants
What are your thoughts on the upcoming school year?
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