About Us

Dr. David Sanders; Chairperson Department of Broadcasting

Department Awards History of the Department Department Administration

Welcome to the web-home of the Department of Broadcasting.

For more than 55 years, the Department of Broadcasting at Montclair State University has been training future generations of leaders and workers for the fast-paced, ever-changing television industry. From their first day in the program to graduation, students are immersed in real-world and practical experiences that challenge them to think critically and creatively as they pursue their undergraduate education.

Students explore the creative, technical and business aspects of broadcasting — what it means to act responsibly while at the same time taking risks -then apply their knowledge by interning at major network stations in nearby Manhattan.

Alumni of our program can be found in top posts around the world including positions as writers, directors, producers and executives. Graduates find additional work in news, media sales, administration and programming.

In 1988 Montclair State University was recognized as a Center of Excellence in the Fine and Performing Arts with a grant that allowed the Department's DuMont Television Center to become the first-rate facility it is today and position the department toward award winning achievement. Through our collaborations with ABC, NBC, NJN (which broadcasts from campus) and other industry partners, in conjunction with our progressive curriculum and professionally affiliated faculty, the Department of Broadcasting at MSU maintains a commitment to educational excellence and to pushing the boundaries of the profession.

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Department Awards

Broadcasting majors receive award from Philip Roberts, President and CEO
of the NJ Broadcasters Association.

The Department of Broadcasting, its faculty and staff have been recognized through many awards and distinctions.

Department Awards

• Best in Festival, The International Film Festival of South Africa, 2008
• Best community film, The International Film Festival of South Africa, 2008
• Best inspirational Film, 3rd place, Bayou City Inspirational Film Festival
  for A Ripple in the Water: Healing Through Art, 2008.
• 2008 New Jersey Broadcasters Association Scholarships were awarded to three of our students
• US International Film and Video Festival Award for Your Worst Nightmare
• Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, 2002
• Gracie Allen Award, 2002
• Gracie Allen Award, given by American Women in Radio and Television, 2001
• Award for Creative Excellence, U.S. International Film & Video Festival
• Telly Award
• Grand Award for Excellence, Apex
• Certificate of Merit, National Recruitment Video Competition

Faculty & Student Awards

• WOMEN PIONEERS IN BROADCASTING, produced by MSU student, Marta Fernandez, won Gracie Allen Award for American Women in Radio & Television.
  
• BOOK OF THANKS written, produced, shot and edited by four MSU students, Marta Fernandez, Stacey Weaver, Valarie Harper and Maureen Paonessa, was aired as part of a special hour-long program on NJN, "America Together: New Jersey Voices...Heroes." The program won a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award.
  LIGHT IN SILENT SORROW: THE STORY OF MY OMA, produced by MSU student Mirjam LaBlans, won Gracie Award for American Women in Radio & Television.
• BEYOND 911: THE UNRESPONSIVE INFANT, won the Award for Creative Excellence, U.S. International Film and Video Festival, Finalist, International Television and Video Association.
• DANCE ACROSS THE DATELINE, won a Telly Award, Finalist, New York Festivals International Film & Video Association.
  
• MONTCLAIR. . .STATE OF THE ARTS, won a Grand Award for Excellence, Apex, and a Certificate of Merit, Admissions Marketing Report National Recruitment Video Competition.
  CARPE DIEM series won a CAPE Award for Best Series in the State
  
• AS WE SEE IT won a Gold Medal Award, Admissions Marketing Report National Recruitment Video Competition and a Grand Award for Excellence, Apex Awards.

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History of the Department

The Department of Broadcasting has been educating students in the art and craft of broadcasting for almost 60 years.

1948-1951      1952-1969      1970-1987      1988-present

1948 -1951

The president of Montclair State Teachers College, Dr. Harry Sprague, a national higher education leader because of his development of MSC as the first New Jersey four-year college to prepare secondary school teachers, and Dr. Allen B. DuMont, a world leader and pioneer in the development of television and head of the DuMont Television Network, as well as a Montclair resident, became acquainted. They wondered if television might have some mutual usefulness, and decided to investigate.

As a result, one day Dr. Sprague visited a speech class in session (the administration had never interrupted classes before), and introduced Dr. DuMont. Together they asked if MSC could find any constructive use for a television camera.

The answer, of course, was "Yes!" How could anyone say "No?"

Soon a camera was delivered. It was the prototype (after several years of development) of the first commercial television camera, and was copied, with improvements, for many years. The black and white image-orthicon tube camera had a three lens turret (50, 75 and 100mm), was quite large, and required great amounts of light to get an image. Ed Rasp, who had been directing MSC's audio activity, was sent part-time to the DuMont Network's flagship station Channel 5 in New York for operation and maintenance instruction. During these days, the DuMont network was developing programs like "The Jackie Gleason Show," which spawned the famous "The Honeymooners" program.

The camera was first used in Room A. There were several monitors, also supplied by DuMont. Most were 10" screens, but one was 19".

The equipment was to become an instructional tool, but, of course, only on a closed circuit and thus for live viewing. Students in the workshop began to learn the whole gamut of studio crew positions, the fundamentals of programming, and other related production problems and solutions. Some college speech instructors encouraged students to watch each other and give critiques while working on acting and speech projects. Many of the faculty used the camera routinely in performance classes into the 1970s.

During these years, the television workshop became exceedingly active. This activity resulted in increased expertise on the part of the students, and was demonstrated in many ways and in many places. Typical of the interest in MSC's pioneering television workshop is the following list of instances when the college accepted invitations for on-location and on-camera demonstrations:

• Televising a gymnastics demonstration at the Panzer School (not yet part of MSC) in East Orange
• Televising a demonstration speech clinic lesson by Ellen Kaufman at Jersey State Teachers Convention in Atlantic City
• Televising a national business convention at the Statler Hotel in New York
• Demonstrating television techniques at Danbury State College in Danbury, Connecticut

In all cases, buses were provided to haul all of the equipment, student crews, faculty and talent. Local help was also available as grips, cable pullers, and "gofers."

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1952 -1969

Montclair's new president, E. de Alton Partridge (1951-66), an enthusiastic supporter of television at Montclair State, appointed Lawrence Conrad of the English Department to chair a Television in Education Committee. In order to dramatize and publicize the possibilities of educational television, and in a small way to begin to evaluate its uses, the Committee planned a possible day in the life of an educational station.

The Committee and workshop members worked with selected teachers in the Bloomfield and Montclair school systems. They explored what types of programs to develop, for what grades, and in what curricular areas. The student workshop planned, wrote and rehearsed the programs, and built sets and other items that were needed. Eight programs were selected, so that a wide range of grade levels and both in- and out-of-class activities could be presented.

The day of the event was April 30th, 1952.

The gym became the studio. Cameras (a second one was provided by DuMont for the occasion), lights, sets, a control room (manned by DuMont technicians for the actual transmission), and crowd control ropes were all in place early that morning. DuMont installed a microwave transmitter in the east tower of what is now College Hall to send signals to the DuMont studios on Madison Avenue in New York City. From there, the signal was broadcast on Channel 54 to the selected classrooms in two towns, where it was viewed on thirteen 21" screens provided by DuMont. A 30" monitor, fed by cable, was available to viewers in the College Hall auditorium. The day's broadcast began at 8:30 A.M. and ended with the eighth program at 3:30 P.M. Several hundred visitors circulated around the project during the day, not to mention the hundreds of viewers at the various classroom sites. Newspaper coverage was extensive, including an article by renowned television critic Jack Gould of The New York Times.

A forty-page report, — Educational Television Moves Forward, with details on planning, production and assessment of the educational television principles implemented through this experiment, was written by Professor Conrad.

Immediately after the experimental broadcast day, Ed Rasp was transferred to Trenton as Television Consultant to the Board of Education. Ted Sheft joined the college staff as Rasp's successor. The workshop courses continued and expanded.

With President Partridge's support, the Television Committee began an investigation into how television could help identify and encourage better teaching. It was obvious that new space and facilities would be needed to accommodate the ever-expanding possibilities for television at Montclair State.

Room "E," a wing of the Audio/Visual Department at the southwest corner of the lower floor of College Hall, became a television studio. Acoustical treatment was provided for the space, a grid for lights was hung, a permanent control room was constructed behind one wall, and two important pieces of equipment were installed that foreshadowed the technical trends of television during this period: a kinescope (film) recorder and a film processing unit. Together, these allowed picture and sound signals from the television camera to be fed to a small projector that projected the image onto 16mm film. The film could be immediately fed through the processing unit. In less than a minute, the developed and dried film was ready to pass through a second projector onto a screen for viewing either then or later - no longer "live" only.

Norm Lucas was hired to run the operation. The unit required water, so it was installed in the men's locker room (where A/V is now). It needed air under pressure for the drying unit, but the generator outside the building was so noisy that it sometimes could not be run if nearby classes were in session.

President Partridge sought money from many sources for more television experimentation. He was able to interest the Ford Foundation in some of MSC's projects. For the "Great Teachers" project, he turned to the Danforth Foundation for support. He was on the board for the "Continental Classroom" program, which pioneered the offering of classes for college credit on commercial television. One of the Continental Classsroom's first teachers was Paul Clifford, an MSC math professor and specialist in quality control. (In the 1930s, Professor Clifford laid out the curves and shapes for the MSC Amphitheater, to be built by the WPA).

Within a very few years, Ted Sheft was called to Trenton to succeed Ed Rasp (who left to form his own production company). Under Sheft's technical supervision as Director of Engineering, the entire New Jersey Public Television network was designed, built, and equipped. Its studio was a converted bowling alley, and transmitters in four locations (including one on our own campus) sent signals covering New Jersey as well as parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

For a brief time, the MSC workshop was able to experiment with a DuMont engineering product anticipating color television. This technology, also being worked on by the CBS Laboratories — utilized a color sequential system: a disc with three primary colors revolved before a black and white tube to create the color image. However, the system's commercial prospects were doomed by its bulk and weight and lack of compatibility with the existing NTSC system; color orthicon tubes became the standard of the industry.

Also at this time, Ted Sheft was able to secure for Montclair State one of RCA's first transistorized cameras; this became a second camera for a while.

Throughout these years, both classes and special projects continued to use the facilities constantly. The credit-bearing courses, on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, were taught by Emma Fantone, who later became the Director of the Media Center. She was assisted by John Diglio, who was then new to the faculty.

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1970 -1987

When the School of Fine and Performing Arts was formed, television became one of its departments, and in 1970, it became a new major program. In that year, John Gartley was hired to develop more extensive use of the growing facilities and to build a professional curriculum. However, in the next year he was lured away by Northwestern University to develop the television program in its famous School of Speech. Christopher Stasheff then took over the television directorship. Howard Travis came to MSC in 1974.

Telerad began in the Fall of 1973 when Professor Stasheff taught Writing for the Broadcast Media for the first time. It was thought that the students could not fully understand broadcast writing unless they had the chance to see their scripts produced. So with the work-study help of Rhoda Sloyer, Stasheff organized a broadcast day modeled after the Telerad program at the University of Michigan. (The U. of M. has had a significant influence on the broadcasting program at MSU, since all but one of the five permanent directors of Broadcasting at MSU have received either MAs or PhDs from Michigan.) The writing class produced and directed, but they borrowed the services of other Speech and Theater majors as crew and talent. The program lasted a full day, alternating between television and radio, and all live. Telerad continued until 1992.

In 1981, Montclair State established a chapter of Alpha Epsilon Rho, The National Broadcasting Society, and was honored that year as the "Outstanding Chapter."

The confined quarters of the Television Center in College Hall became more and more inadequate as the facilities and the program expanded. Therefore, when the Life Hall cafeteria became available, John Diglio, now Director of the Center, and the television staff, including engineer Bill Puskas, worked with the architects in planning and implementing the conversion in 1981 to our present space. Rosalyn Liccardo was hired as receptionist in 1982.

The old Life Hall cafeteria was divided into a dance studio, an experimental theater space and the DuMont Television Center, consisting of two studios, adjoining control rooms, an audio suite, two editing suites, classrooms, offices, prop and set storage space, and a Green Room for student majors. Moving into the new space in Life Hall also signaled the coming of color television to Montclair State.

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1988 -PRESENT

In 1988, Montclair State was designated as a major Center of Influence in the Fine and Performing Arts and was awarded The Governor's Challenge Grant for $5.6 million. Part of the grant was used to upgrade the television facilities of the DuMont Television Center and to supplement the existing personnel. A new engineer, Jeff Jones, was added, and a producer/director, Marjorie Ford, was hired to produce segments for State of the Arts on NJN. Stephanie Wood became administrative assistant.

Up until 1991, the Television Center was administratively part of the Audio/Visual Department. In 1991, it was re-organized to become part of the School of Fine and Performing Arts.

In the space of three semesters, Chris Stasheff resigned from the faculty to pursue what has become a successful career writing science fiction books for young readers, and Howard Travis left Montclair State for a faculty position at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania.

Jan Hunold was hired as the new Broadcasting Coordinator in 1989, but left to raise a family. In 1990, Anne Jenkins came from Delaware State University to serve as Broadcasting Coordinator for the 1990 academic year, with Gina Kennedy serving as producer/director.

In 1991, Larry Londino was hired to assume responsibilities of Broadcasting Coordinator. Dr. Londino had served as Head of Undergraduate Studies on the faculty of the Department of Film/Television at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Former adjunct instructor Patty (DiFlauro) Piroh became the staff producer/director in 1993, and the long dormant second faculty line in the Broadcasting Division was filled by Thom Gencarelli, who had previously taught at Iona College and had just completed his Ph.D. from New York University's Media Ecology program. In 1994, Peter Gutheil replaced the retiring Bill Puskas as senior engineer.

In 1994, when Montclair State became a university, the Broadcasting Division participated in the production of various pieces for broadcast and promotional purposes. In 1996, when the School of Fine and Performing Arts became the School of the Arts, the Broadcasting Division became a department in its own right, and a new, third full-time faculty member, Dr. David Sanders, was hired. Sanders brought his expertise in music and audio production to the department, leading to significant expansion of the audio facility and curriculum. Stephanie Wood became the department secretary.

Since 1991, the Broadcasting program has begun to rekindle the spirit and drive that has characterized the long and distinguished history of broadcasting at Montclair State. From 1991 to 1995, the program has had two student productions receive national recognition in the music video and documentary categories of the AERho-NBS student production awards competition, a national professional/faculty production award, and has had one of its majors designated the New Jersey Broadcasters Association Scholarship recipient. "As We See It," the university recruitment video produced by the department, won the gold award in the National Admissions Marketing Report Competition — beating out two schools that had hired outside production companies — and has since won three other awards (two national and one international). "Montclair State.of the Arts," the department's promotional video for the School of the Arts, was also recognized with national and international awards. In 1996, Dr. Londino's documentary on golfer John Shippen, "A Place for Us," aired on PBS. A Ripple in the Warter: Healing Through Art, co-produced by Patricia Piroh and Eileen Foti of Art & Design, and directed by Larry Londino, is appearing on PBS throughout 2008.

In 2008 Marc Rosenweig, offering years of management experience and Beverly Peterson with years of documentary experience, joined the faculty of this dynamic department.
And 2008 has also seen the DuMont Television Center transition to high definition television, with new cameras and control room equipment.

The department currently produces a lively, weekly magazine-format television show, "Carpe Diem," that is distributed both over the air and on cable in New Jersey and throughout the metropolitan area, as well as "Inside MSU", the live, weekly campus television news program cablecast to the campus community. In addition, the Broadcasting students, faculty and staff have established a television production company that is responsible for numerous professional productions for the campus and the surrounding community. The program's students and faculty have produced three television documentaries, and are currently producing a fourth detailing the School of Fine and Performing Arts/School of the Arts' ongoing series of international performance tours of Europe and Australia.

"Carpe Diem," winner of three Gracie Awards, a Telly Award, the CAPE award for best weekly series, and a MidAtlantic Emmy, celebrated its 12th anniversary in Spring 2006.

Throughout the history of Broadcasting at Montclair State, the emphasis has remained on a strong liberal arts curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree. Simultaneously, students are given access to state-of-the-art technical facilities and an opportunity to develop professional-level producing and writing skills.

Superbly equipped, expertly staffed, heavily used and proud of the employment and industry successes of its graduates, the Department of Broadcasting and the DuMont Television Center speak for themselves — the culmination of the foresight imbedded in a fateful, simple question posed almost 60 years ago: "Could Montclair use a television camera?"

It could, it did, and it does!

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*The pre-1985 information is courtesy of : A Chronological Presentation of the Department of Speech and Theatre: A History of the Speech Family, a voluminously well-researched work that was compiled in 1985 by Howard Fox, Ellen Kauffman and Karl Moll.