News

With over 14,000 living alumni who earned degrees in Communication Arts since our program was founded over 100 years ago, it has become a massive responsibility to maintain connections with our graduates. Our 2025-2029 Strategic Plan committed to strengthening the shared affinities among that ever-growing community. As part of that initiative, Jamie Prey joined our program as our Alumni Relations Officer this spring. In this role, Prey works to reconnect with these 14,000 alumni and learn about their excitement to support Communication Arts.

For a long time, people assumed that reading great literature, like the works of Shakespeare, made people better, strengthened their character, and gave them culture. These days, however, few people find themselves engrossed in the monologues of Hamlet and are instead entrenched in a sub-thread on Reddit or the comments section of a viral TikTok video. Can social media make us better people in the same way it was once thought that reading Shakespeare could? Students in a new Communication Arts and Digital Studies course are working to find out.

Imagine it was your job to plan an event to let students get their first taste of UW–Madison. You might propose a cheese carving contest. Or maybe they get to make homemade ice cream and have their first scoop looking out at Lake Mendota. The process by which you might generate these ideas is the focus of a new Communication Arts research project. By isolating different conditions, this study is discovering the optimal way to use artificial intelligence (AI) during the brainstorming process.

The dull buzz of the same lighting equipment has permeated our second-floor studios for over 50 years. For the first time this fall, that buzz will fade as these old lights are phased out and students begin using brand-new LED lighting kits in their productions.

As you inch closer to the classroom door, you can hear the distinct “bum bum be-dum, bum bum be-dum bum” from Rihanna’s “Disturbia” echoing through the hall. You round the corner to see the music video projected at the front of the room and students quietly bopping their heads along with the beat. Class is now in session for the new special topics course, “Music Video from MTV to TikTok.”

While every academic year brings new challenges, it also brings new proof of our department’s unrelenting momentum. Through the talent of our students, the commitment of our faculty and staff, and the support of our alumni, Communication Arts is making an impact more widely and across more boundaries than ever before.