Fashion is everywhere at Southern Methodist University, from the innovative fall trends worn on the Boulevard, to the SMU Style Blog featured in The Daily Campus.
This devotion to fashion has many students interested in pursuing a career in the fashion media industry.
As 2011 approaches, fashion does not have to just be a hobby anymore.
Meadows announced a new minor in fashion media that offers students the opportunity to fuse their interest in fashion with journalism, public relations or photography, in order to prepare them for further academic study or workplace internships.
“We hope to provide Meadows students with an interest in fashion media with some conceptual and practical knowledge that will prove useful to them,” journalism professor Camille Kraeplin said.
The development of the fashion media minor is a result of both student interest and faculty support.
“We looked into developing the fashion media minor because the Meadows School offers courses that lend themselves to a cross-disciplinary minor such as fashion media,” Kraeplin said. “In addition, many of our students have expressed an interest in pursuing careers in the fashion media industries.”
Kraeplin will act as director to the minor, after having years of experience as a features editor, a restaurant critic and a professor in critical studies courses involving women and the media.
Fashion Media will be housed in the journalism school and requires 19 credit hours including the completion of a visual media skills course, a written media skills course, a capstone course, two history and critical studies courses, and one elective.
Kraeplin is already receiving emails from interested students and believes that the minor will draw in many students because it combines several fields of study.
“Students can make course choices and structure the minor based largely on their own interests,” Kraeplin said. Students will select the one of the three capstone courses after they have fulfilled all the other requirements first.
“For instance, a student who hopes to pursue fashion photography can select a series of classes leading to a Fashion Photography Capstone,” Kraeplin said. “Other tracks lead to a Fashion Journalism Capstone or a Fashion Public Relations and Promotions Capstone.”
The capstone courses are the last step in completing the minor and should be available sometime next year. With the minor in Fashion Media already generating anticipation from students and faculty, it will be interesting to see the program’s influence on the student population in years to come.
