University of Wisconsin–Madison

2011-12: A Year in Accomplishments for Comm Arts Faculty and Grad Students

2011-12 was a highly successful school year for the Comm Arts department with numerous faculty members and graduate students receiving prestigious awards, fellowships, and distinctions. Indeed, the number of accolades is too great to list here in its entirety, but what follows are some of the more notable accomplishments earned both inside and outside UW-Madison: …

Comm Arts Honors Outstanding Undergrad Students with Achievement Awards

Every year, the department has the pleasure of giving out a handful of awards and scholarships to outstanding undergraduate students majoring in Communication Arts. We are proud to announce the recipients for 2011-12: Rachel Bozich and Zachary Pestine were both awarded the Christopher Neal Heinlein Memorial Scholarship. These scholarships, named in honor of Comm Arts student …

Tino Balio Named a 2012 Wisconsin Academy Fellow

Comm Arts Professor Emeritus Tino Balio has been named a 2012 Wisconsin Academy Fellow, the highest level of recognition conferred by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. He is being inducted as a 2012 Fellow alongside author Jerry Apps, journalist Jean Feraca, medical doctor Cynthia Haq, plant geneticist Molly Jahn, music conductor Jim Latimer, …

Hollywood Badgers Connects Students to the Entertainment Industries

What do film director, screenwriter, and producer Michael Mann, movie producer Walter Mirisch, television producer, writer, and director Steven Levitan, screenwriters and directors Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, media executive Stephen Jarchow, author and popular cultural critic Nathan Rabin, documentarian Errol Morris, television and film director Lev L. Spiro, musician and record producer Butch Vig, …

Students Demonstrate Persuasive Skills in CA 100 Speech Contest

Each semester, hundreds of undergraduates from across UW-Madison take Comm Arts 100, Introduction to Speech Composition. Part of the university’s Communication-A requirement, the course is designed to help students write and deliver effective speeches, as well as to understand the rhetorical principles of effective (and ethical) public discourse. During the semester, each student writes and …

Comm Arts Welcomes New Undergraduate Advisor

The Comm Arts department is pleased to announce the addition of Amy Schultz as an Undergraduate Advisor. Comm Arts continues to grow as one of the most popular majors on campus, and Amy arrives as a great asset to help our faculty and staff meet the academic and career advising needs of our more than …

Stephen Jarchow, Here Media & Regent Entertainment Chair, To Talk on Tuesday

What is the current state of the entertainment industry? How have new technologies and changes in business models affected film and television as we have come to know them? These are some of the issues that Stephen P. Jarchow, Chairman of Here Media and Regent Entertainment, will discuss during a visit to campus on Tuesday, …

Wisconsin Film Festival Kicks Off Today

The 2012 Wisconsin Film Festival kicks off today, Wednesday, April 18th. The festival will run for five days (April 18-22), showing more than 150 films on nine screens spread throughout the city of Madison. Now in its fourteenth year, the WFF, which is the largest campus-based film festival in the United States, is co-presented by …

Comm Arts Student’s It Gets Better Video Confronts Anti-Gay Bullying

This past January, UW-Madison senior and Comm Arts major Colton James Boettcher made public a music video promoting the pro-gay, anti-discrimination message of the It Gets Better Project. An elaborate dance production set to the Lady Gaga song “Hair,” the video was posted online through YouTube and quickly went viral. Within a matter of hours, …

Professor Catalina Toma Talks to WPR About Online Dating

A few weeks ago, Comm Arts Professor Catalina Toma was interviewed on the Joy Cardin show on Wisconsin Public Radio’s (WPR) Ideas Network, where she spoke at length about her research on self-presentation and deception in online dating. Professor Toma has published a number of scholarly articles on this topic, most recently in the Journal of Communication and New …