EA Establishes Interactive Media Program At USC

After Nintendo's new announcement of its own professorship at the well-known Digipen Institute of Technology, Electronic Arts today announced its have a title to significant investment in the education of coming time game creators. EA has made a multi-million dollar donation to the University of Southern California's seminary of Cinema-Television, and specifically its Division of Interactive Media.

EA's donation will capital two new elements of the school's interactive media arm. The Electronic Arts Interactive Entertainment Program will hold a conference a three-year Master of Fine Arts stage upon "the next generation of high-level gaming design and visionary thinkers." The Electronic Arts Endowed Faculty Chair, meanwhile, will help draw experienced faculty and support them in research and teaching efforts.

The MFA program will include a curriculum and research lab covering the artistic and technical aspects of game creation, with faculty and material drawn from cinema as well as more general arts and sciences. EA also plans to collaborate with the program by dint of providing internships and work-study opportunities for learners at its newly-opened Los Angeles studio in Playa del Rey

Another event of the donation is the appointment of Don Mattrick, EA's president of worldwide studios, to USC's Board of Councilors, putting him in a position to further encourage the university's advancement of the interactive arts and sciences.

"To create the nearest generation of entertainment, we ne the nearest generation of talent," said Rusty Rueff EA's executive VP of human resources. "Melding storytelling, art, music, game design, and technology has become in the way that complex that it is imperative for tomorrow's designers and husbandmans to acquire an education with one as well as the other depth and breadth in order to achieve succes in our ever-growing industry."

Copyright ?© 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserv Originally appearing in 1UP