The Creative and Cultural Industries program at Chapman was launched in Fall 2018 with the opening of the CCI minor in Wilkinson College. Last semester the program made another major advancement with the official opening of the CCI center, located on Glassell St. right next to Public Safety.
The CCI center will serve as a collaborative workspace and home base for all students in the minor.
Natalie Ridpath, senior Business major and CCI minor, commented that the centralized location will be a hub of activity and is much more convenient than the previous collection of CCI offices and professors spread around campus.
Ridpath has been in the program since its opening in 2018 and is excited not only for the new center, but also how fast the minor is growing.
Dr. Patrick Fuery, Director of the CCI program, said that the initial plan was to launch the program and get twenty-five students the first year, forty in the second, and then fifty the following year, thinking that goal was ambitious but achievable. Currently, there are already more than 100 students enrolled in the minor, with most of the classes already waitlisted for the next semester and a high demand for more courses and faculty. These high numbers show that there is need for these kinds of interdisciplinary programs at the university and that CCI is positioning itself to be that link to creative collaboration on campus for students.
Senior Public Relations and Advertising major and CCI minor, Ilana Gale, was also in attendance at the center’s opening and said that the minor is so popular because it’s very engaging and interdisciplinary. She said it’s easy for students to turn a passion into a career through the CCI program.
As Dr. Fuery commented in his speech at the grand opening, CCI will only continue to grow and become more relevant at Chapman and beyond because it’s creating highly skilled and socially aware students who are thinking beyond disciplines and using creativity as a way to enact social change.
Pictured left to right: Mr. Joe Moderow, Mrs. Karen Moderow, Dr. Patrick Fuery
The center was made possible due to the generous efforts of Mrs. and Mr. Karen and Joe Moderow, and the CCI faculty are already putting it to use by thinking of the next steps for the program such as creating a major and eventually a graduate program here at Chapman.