Dodge College adds new faculty, departments for fall semester

Stephen Galloway, dean of Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, has created opportunities out of pandemic obstacles through the implementation of new masterclasses, a Careers Office, a casting department and trustee professors. Panther Archives

Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts has made strides in the last year since Stephen Galloway’s appointment as the school’s dean. Dodge College has jumped to the fourth spot for the first time in the school’s history in The Wrap’s 2020 rankings of all U.S. film and media arts colleges. The Wrap attributed this award to Galloway’s new master class and mentorship program initiatives.

Galloway has had three main goals in his first year as dean: greater osmosis and collaboration with Hollywood, improved diversity efforts and modernization of the Dodge curriculum. 

“We’re on the doorstep of Hollywood,” Galloway told The Panther. “One of the reasons people come here is because they want a career in the entertainment and media world.”

Galloway announced March 2 noteworthy accomplishments for the college, including a brand new career office specifically catered to students pursuing jobs in the film and media arts industry, a new casting department and one of Hollywood’s best-known entertainment reporters, Scott Feinberg, joining Chapman as a trustee professor.

The first step in providing “the best career office of any film school around,” as Galloway hopes, was to bring in Dodge College professor Joseph Rosenberg to lead the operation, who will now take on a new role as director of industry relations.

Drawing off of Rosenberg’s experience working with celebrity clients as an agent for the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), he is tasked with creating a variation of the CAA that can be applied to film schools and act as an agent for Dodge students looking to network with industry professionals and future employers. He frequently sends internship and job opportunities to students in his “The New Era of Television” course.

“You come to Dodge to get a great education, but part of that education is being educated on how the business works — the principles and the methods that make for success both in breaking in and maintaining success in Hollywood,” Rosenberg said. 

The Dodge Careers Office will be located on the first floor of Marion Knott Studios and is designed to house multiple offices for the careers team and be open and user-friendly, with a lobby for students to gather and lounge while working on future job opportunities. The staff will aim to assist students in finding internships and jobs, to teach students how to write a professional resume or cover letter and to help students connect and network with alumni and industry professionals. Workshops will also be provided to students, regardless of their artistic niche; topics include script coverage, Steadicams and how to raise money for an independent project.

“If there's an area we’re not touching that's going to be useful in terms of building a career, tell me what it is and we will create a workshop for it,” Galloway said.

Russell Boast, the co-president of the Casting Society of America, will join Dodge College this fall as a trustee professor and head of the new Casting Department. Functioning as a middle-man between filmmakers and casting directors, Boast will be available to advise students on casting for projects as well as to provide workshops and courses for students to learn more about the topic. 

Galloway spoke highly of the new addition to the faculty, describing Boast as “warm, friendly and compassionate.” 

Feinberg, a former coworker of Galloway’s, will also join Dodge College as a trustee professor in the fall. He plans on taping episodes of his podcast “Awards Chatter” — which features in-depth interviews with industry titans like Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep and Ken Burns — in front of a student audience. Although he told The Panther he’s unable to announce his guest speaker lineup just yet, he explained he typically books awards season contenders as guests. Feinberg said he was excited for the fall semester and the course he will be teaching, which will likely focus on entertainment interviewing and the industry today. 

“We want the students to be a part of it,” Feinberg said. “In a way, making all of the students producers of the episode with me — planning it and dissecting it afterwards.”

Galloway drew on his experience as the executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter and the creator of the famous Hollywood Reporter roundtables to create Chapman’s master classes, which have been a hit with students, alumni and faculty since they first began in the fall of 2020.

Galloway has spent a limited amount of time physically on campus since he first took the dean’s office, but he hasn’t let the pandemic dampen his outlook, continuing to search for ways to improve the film school.

“Everything that seems like an obstacle can also be an opportunity,” Galloway said.