What’s the motivating factor? It’s interesting to take a step back and think about it.”
b
In addition to the TV studio, communications students use Final Cut Pro X, Garageband, and the full complement of Adobe Creative Suites.
show. She’s applying the same keen eye to the Kardashians and plans to finish her research on their reality TV empire later this year. It’s all part of McClain’s passion for deciphering the why behind our pop cultural fixations, and she aims to instill that same curiosity in her students. “They’ve grown up with digital media and know how to download music, but some of them don’t know a good source from a bad source,” she says. “Why is it not ok to cite Wikipedia? Why do people write Yelp reviews?
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FALL 2012
efore our tour of the television production studio, a pair of power washers blasting water through high-pressure hoses outside Holy Family Hall made for a loud, comical pause to our interview. It was fitting in a sense, considering McClain has done similar work with the communications department, minus the wet stuff—she’s given the program a good scrubbing and made it shine, with new classes, improved technology, and a unique way of keeping students engaged, beyond the traditional lectures and theory. “If I’m talking about stereotypes on TV and I bring up Jersey Shore, they all go, ‘Oh, right!’” she says. “You can see a flash of understanding. That’s the moment I live for as a teacher—when you can see the connection between something conceptual and something they’re familiar with.” At first, it may seem a little unsettling that Snooki is sparking intellectual epiphanies in the classroom, but that’s exactly McClain’s strategy. Don’t shy away from what’s happening in the media, be it new smartphone app or the celebrity flavor of the month—use them as teaching tools and look at them from a new angle you’ve never considered. Take the film The Devil Wears Prada, for example; what some see as a cute Anne Hathaway vehicle, McClain presented as part of a “Careers in Communications” movie series, with the focus not on Hathaway’s wardrobe, but on her character’s job in the magazine industry (along with free pizza, of course). As we move next door to the editing suite, McClain shows me an empty room reminiscent of a producer’s booth in a radio station, with expansive counters and a window that looks out to the computer bays. McClain isn’t worried that it’s underutilized at the moment. Instead, she’s excited for what the future may hold. “This is a great space,” she says. “What can we do with it?”
holyfamily.edu/magazine