Interview: Elena Bertozzi and Spencer Stuart
By Troy Bargenquast
I recently sat down and talked with Elena Bertozzi and Spencer Stuart, who both teach in the Communication Department. Dr. Bertozzi has been teaching for five years at UW-Whitewater. This is Spencer Stuart's first semester. "I'm a freshman," he told me. They are graduates of Indiana University, where they both received their degrees in the same Masters in Immersive Mediated Environments program, also known as MIME. MIME's purpose is to meld every media that has been invented and apply them to digital and virtual platforms.
Dr. Bertozzi was not thrilled with the program's name, in particular, the acronym. She remembers telling her program advisor at Indiana, "Please not MIME. People are going to think we do mime or something." It is not a coincidence that Bertozzi and Stuart graduated through the same program at the same university. Stuart learned of the UW-Whitewater position through the Alumni MIME network and was hired because he has a "strong skill set," according to Bertozzi. The new multimedia program named Media Arts and Game Development (MAGD) offers students the skills to work in the video game field.
With the creation of the MAGD program at Whitewater came the creation of a new classroom in McGraw 127 and new equipment including new I-Mac computers, a 52-inch LCD television that is connected for video conferencing, and both a blue and black screen. "I can't believe we got everything we did," Stuart said. He regularly video conferences with Indiana University for GameZombie.tv, an original web-based series about video games, which conducts reviews and provides coverage of some of the biggest events and people in the gaming industry. "It's my baby," says Stuart. It can be seen on YouTube and other video sharing websites. GameZombie.tv has become a joint collaboration between students and professionals at UW-Whitewater and Indiana University. Any students who are willing to volunteer their time working with GameZombie.tv will learn important skills in web development, production, and marketing.
Bertozzi and Stuart teach students the skills they need to get jobs in the gaming industry. The video game industry needs people who can program software and have the ability to communicate ideas clearly to the hundreds of people who develop games throughout each stage of the production. "College students are unable to take and give criticism," Bertozzi stated, feeling that this inhibits students' communication skills. Her classes have a building process for the students in her classes: make, critique, and then improve. Dr. Bertozzi teaches communication by having each student take time to critique each other's works and say things that are constructive to the other students. This is how she is able to teach communication between classmates and prepare students to give and receive critiques.
Another goal for the MAGD program is to "train a new, smarter wave of people in gaming," stated Stuart. "Train people to take the content seriously." His class is taught by competitive, project-based learning. "The class will vote on which project is the best." He also sets aside time so that students can play video games with him in his office, and during class he has a one-on-one video game competition going until there is only one student standing. Stuart uses the competition of video games to inspire people to work hard and communicate.
Why video games? "They gross more money than big Hollywood blockbusters," Stuart said. According to Activision, the company that made Modern Warfare 2, that particular game earned an estimated $550 million just in its first five days of release, topping box office records set by Harry Potter and The Dark Knight. Video games are unique in that they let you play as the main protagonist and force you to make choices. "Video games put you in a moral quandary," says Bertozzi. "It's like Shakespeare with a twist."
Bertozzi's and Stuart's styles of teaching might be a little different than what a student might be used to, but all of the skills that you need to get into the workforce are being taught here at UW-Whitewater. They complement each other well and will give students a thorough, wide and serious viewpoint of video games and the industry.