VMA Pathway

What is the Visual and Media Arts (VMA) Pathway?

Beginning in Spring 2023, Salesian began exploring the possibility of offering a four-year program offering a focused area of study in the school’s Visual and Performing Arts Department. Recognizing that annual applicants to the school include many young practicing and interested art makers, Salesian sought to develop a multidimensional and multimedia program that would offer these engaged students an interdisciplinary approach bridging the visual and digital arts, community resources, sustainability, and journalism. Inspired by the scope and sequence suggested by the Education Development Center, Inc., the Salesian Visual and Media Arts Pathway will prepare high school students for post-secondary education as well as careers in the arts, entertainment, and media industries.

What Does the Visual and Media Arts Pathway Offer?

Year 1
Year 2

Year 1

Foundations in Visual Arts

This introductory course in the VMA Pathway incorporates 21st century skills (including teamwork, critical thinking, and communication) that students need to thrive in post-secondary learning, citizenship, and careers in any industry. In this course, students explore a range of arts and media careers, and they assume the roles of creative professionals by employing diverse approaches to visual problem solving in their course assignments. Through assignments, portfolio development, and journal reflections, students continually return to their own vision, deepening and expanding their capacity to “see” both as creators and as critical consumers of art and media. In these ways, students come to understand how their individual creative vision is influenced by the culture and the contexts in which they live.

Year 2

Foundations in Media and Digital Design

In Year 2 of the VMA Pathway, students embark on a sequence of two semester-long courses: Audio & Video and Animation & Game Design. These courses build on students' learning in Foundations in Visual Arts to introduce key technical specializations that drive the Media and Digital Design sector. Students leave the course with enough experience to choose a technical concentration to pursue in the third and fourth year of the program. The course focuses on four media specializations:

Audio production
Film, video, and television production
Animation
Video game design

Results of the Visual and Media Arts Pathway

The Visual and Media Arts (VMA) Pathway is a four-year academic program that meets the educational needs of students by offering supportive and caring instruction in the practice, tradition, and criticism of visual and digital media arts and design. The VMA Pathway offers an atmosphere conducive to developing skilled and knowledgeable art makers who are prepared for the twenty-first century to compete for professional positions and engage in creative endeavors in the arts, entertainment, and media industries.

Mission Goal Statements

The Visual and Media Arts (VMA) Pathway intends to do the following:

To offer an interdisciplinary educational approach bridging the visual and digital arts, community resources, sustainability, and journalism;
To serve as an academic program for hands-on, electronic, digital, and technology-infused art production and design;
To complete rigorous foundation courses in visual arts as well as media and digital design;
To learn from art professionals in introducing contemporary and marketable practices into the curriculum;
To pursue work-based learning activities to gain practical, real-world experience;
To plan and develop an independent, integrative capstone project

Visual and Media Arts (VMA) Instructor

Debra Shushan

Titles: Department Chair: Visual and Performing Arts, Art Teacher, VMA Pathway Instructor

Email:

Frank Rinella

Titles: Visual and Performing Arts Teacher

Email: