[game_edu] Where to post academic job offers?

[Roberts, Scott]

Brenda makes an excellent point, and not only is work/research possible, but it's encouraged.  If you're in a tenure-track position, or want to be in that position, your creative research is vital.

Depending on the institution, you can receive labs for game development and also hire students to help on your research projects.  It's allowed me to work on a non-commercial project that involves experimental input/display, and provides a valuable experience for students.


The reason I believe that terminal degrees and tenure are important for this area is due to the academic freedom that it allows.  Not all educational institutions have tenure, but having long-term job security is definitely a plus [knock on wood.]

For those of you who are considering this, possibly down the road, you should do some research and talk to tenured faculty at a variety of institutions.  Just receiving a PhD/MFA may be enough to get you hired at some schools, but the reputation/quality of the degree program does affect your hiring and your pursuit of tenure.  Tim, your idea of an online-only terminal degree sounds interesting, but I think keeping some residency requirement will increase the value of your degree for those seeking academic careers.  To be honest, I'd be concerned about whether an online-only degree will be looked at in the same light, at least for the near future.  There's value in having alternative structures that encourage long-distance students, such as working it out so that they can periodically travel to the school for 2 days of solid class/mentor meetings.  I think Brenda mentioned something like this in the panel at GDC.

Scott



Scott Roberts
Associate Professor
DePaul University
sroberts at cti.depaul.edu



________________________________________
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Brenda Brathwaite [bbrathwa at scad.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 8:16 PM
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Where to post academic job offers?

This is such a wonderful thread. I've been reading it while on the road, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

There's a point I've yet to see made, and that's about the value of academia to practicing game designers. While I was full-time in the industry, I was in a lead role for nearly 15 years. During that time, I had precious little time to stop and study and think beyond the bounds of whatever commercial project I was working on. Academia has allowed me tremendous freedom to study games on a deep level, and it has made me a better designer, I think.

If any of you caught my OneHundredDogs presentation at the Game Design Challenge this year, I would credit a lot of its funkiness and innovative components to being an academic/industry person, and I don't know that I would have come up with something like that otherwise.

Brenda Brathwaite
---------------------------------------------------
Game Designer
Chair, Interactive Design and Game Development
Savannah College of Art and Design
www.scad.edu
blog: bbrathwaite.wordpress.com