Two programs are being suspended next year at Fanshawe, the TV News and the Advanced Photography programs. The suspension means they will not be offered next year but will return later after being reviewed by the college.
“That will be time for our management team to sit down and say hey, what do we want to do? What are we thinking?” Says Associate Dean of the School of Media and Digital Arts Sarah Ruttan. “What is our future going to look like and then we’ll meet with our friends in reputation brand management, which is essentially our marketing team. How can you help us? We’ll meet with the international team and say what’s the interest and get their thoughts and then we’ll go from there.”
Part of the review includes asking industry experts what is expected of students graduating from the programs.
“Students are quite honestly being expected to do more with less. I think that there’s a lot of call for Content creation.”
Some students had already received their acceptance letter to the TV News program when they discovered its suspension.
“Could we have closed it earlier? Maybe. I wanted to have a successful open house because sometimes that can really help with numbers and that was back in March. Sometimes it takes a while for post-grad search to fill up, but what I was monitoring were the numbers now compared to what they have been over the last five years, and it finally came to a point where I went to my dean and said I think it’s time and she said I agree.”
For TV News graduate Gracia Espinosa, the news of the program’s suspension was heartbreaking.
“For me, it was the point of no return to be the journalist that I want to be,” says Espinosa. “To know that this program is not going to be available for students the next academic year for one year for me it’s sad”
When asked how many students they were required to run the program Ruttan said at least ten, with 12 preferred, would be needed.
“I was so happy when I received the news that I will be a student of broadcasting and journalists in TV news and that I cannot imagine the people who have just received a notification that there are not enough students,” says Espinosa.
The programs should return in the 2025-2026 school year.