Achievements from the Faculty of Communication, Art & Design | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

in the September 2020 issue

Thanks to the work of Anna Cappuccitti, the School of Fashion has an adapted Open Educational Resource. Business Communications for Fashion is designed to guide college students in Fashion programs to develop the business communication skills that are necessary in today's workplace and learn how to communicate in a clear, concise, and effective way.

The British Display Society interviewed Carol Crombie, School of Fashion, and several students about Seneca’s Visual Merchandising Arts program for the September 2020 issue of VM Spotlight. The article is a great profile of the program and the student experience. Read the article here: https://bit.ly/3ippHHs (pages 29-39).

Seneca’s Game Art & Animation program (GAA) is now officially an academic partner with SideFX and certified to teach Houdini. GAA is the second Houdini-certified program in the School of Creative Arts and Animation, joining Visual Effects for Film and Television. Houdini is a powerful 3D program that is being used extensively in films, games, visual effects, and design. Using this software, students can now build an endless array of 3D modular elements and integrate them into cutting-edge video game engines. In addition, upon their successful graduation from the Game Art and Animation program, students are also eligible to receive a commercial license of Houdini from SideFX.

Mark O’Connell, School of Fashion, successfully defended his PhD dissertation. He was in the Politics and Policy stream of the Communication & Culture program that’s offered jointly by Ryerson and York universities. His research explores the potential for social justice reforms in transnational fashion production and supply chains.

Public Relations Dialogues magazine, published by the School of Media, has won first prize in a worldwide competition run by the International Public Relations Association. More than 300 entries were received from around the world. Dialogues won in the Publications category.

The publications were judged by public relations practitioners from Bulgaria, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, USA, UK, and the Philippines.

Beth Agnew, (recently retired) chair of the School of Media, headed up the publication. Bob Cooper, Mimi Tsui, and David Turnbull worked with 16 students from the Public Relations – Corporate Communications program to construct a timely and relevant story list, interview leaders from around the world, write the stories, and assist with layout and design.

Getting a doctorate in style. Congratulations to JoAnn Purcell, School of Creative Arts and Animation, who not only successfully defended her PhD dissertation, but was nominated for a Mary McEwan award. The annual $1,000 award is named in honour of feminist psychiatrist Dr. Mary McEwan and is awarded each year to one dissertation at York University in the area of feminist scholarship. JoAnn’s thesis is entitled, “What does a child with an intellectual disability really want? An investigation through comics, collaboration, caregiving and quantum physics.”

View the September 2020 issue of the Academic Newsletter.