The University of Colorado at Boulder will launch a certificate program in digital media, in partnership with the parent company of Boulder advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
The program, called Boulder Digital Works, will offer a multi-disciplinary, project-based learning system designed to provide the skills needed by future employees and entrepreneurs in the digital communication fields. The project's facilities will be in downtown Boulder, and project directors are currently considering three alternative spaces.
The program will be open to CU students, media professionals and community members. The CU-Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication, particularly its advertising faculty, will provide the academic management, CU's Division of Continuing Education and Professional Studies will operate the program.
Advertising Professor David Slayden, the program's executive director, said faculty will be drawn not only from CU's engineering, advertising and other programs but also from leading digital companies throughout the United States and the world.
Initially, Boulder Digital Works will offer a 60-week certificate program in Digital Arts and Sciences. The Certificate program will begin this fall with applications due by Aug. 15. Beginning in late July, the school will also offer 36-hour, intensive immersion executive programs in digital fluency for working professionals.
The project's corporate partner is MDC Partners, a Toronto-based network of agencies providing consulting and communication services to business clients in North America, Europe and Latin America. One of MDC's several successful agencies is Crispin Porter + Bogusky of Boulder, which has been named Creativity magazine's agency of the year five times, including this year.
Miles Nadal, CEO and chairman of MDC Partners, said that even in the current economic downturn the business world is experiencing a shortage of talent in the digital field.
"Virtually every enterprise needs digital thinkers who are versatile, smart, and connected, and who can move comfortably and intelligently across the disciplines of technology, creative and business," Nadal said. "At MDC Partners, our fundamental philosophy centers on the importance of talent and creativity. We can think of no better investment than the future digital talent of our industry."
Sweden's Hyper Island, one of the most highly regarded digital learning programs in Europe, will also be a partner in the program, providing student and faculty exchanges.
Slayden said the research he conducted in designing the program suggested that a more flexible certificate program would be more useful to students than a traditional academic degree program.
"Our research has surprised us and challenged our assumptions about education, including the insight that most people interested in digital work don't care about a graduate degree," Slayden said. "What they care about is being digitally savvy and connected to the best work out there and the best people doing it. Students completing this program will leave prepared to make an impact in the fastest growing medium in the world."
The School of Journalism and Mass Communication currently operates a certificate program in advertising called "Ads a2b," which prepares students who are not majoring in advertising for entry-level work in advertising with an intensive 100-hour course during the campus's Maymester.
"Our success with 聭Ads a2b' created a viable template for Boulder Digital Works," said CU-Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication Dean Paul S. Voakes. "And our partners in Continuing Education will apply their years of expertise in the operation of such programs."
For more information on Boulder Digital Works visit / or call 303-735-1906.
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