Dear Media School community,
Whether you set resolutions, pick a word of the year, or simply reflect, a new year offers opportunities to reset and re-center. This January, I’m thinking about what 2025 will mean for The Media School.
Three key themes emerge: clarifying vision and strategic priorities, advancing mental health, and bringing several bold initiatives introduced in 2024 to life.
Our five-year strategic plan, set to roll out in the next few months, will provide invaluable clarity on the school’s identity, vision, and priorities. Our faculty, staff, and partner Mapt Solutions have been working extremely hard on this process, and I’m grateful for everyone’s engagement. This process will be key in moving forward with intention.
In 2025, The Media School will emphasize mental health — empowering our students to improve their mental health through increased resources, and foregrounding mental health in research and creative activity.
Our plan to reimagine student media, which we published and began implementation of a few months ago, emphasizes improving the mental health of student journalists. This year, we’ll begin the heavy lifting of those recommendations: developing a plan to protect student journalists against threats to their physical and emotional safety, developing mental health lessons to be taught in Story Lab I and II, organizing a one-day annual self-care and trauma reporting workshop, and developing two semester-long courses.
This is only the beginning of our work on mental health. Stay tuned for further initiatives to be announced later this year.
We launched a lot of exciting initiatives in 2024: the Kinetic Imagery and Extended Reality Lab, our plan to reimagine student media, and our formal partnership with Radio-Television Services. This year, those plans will begin to come to fruition.
We’ll cut the ribbon on our KIX Lab in the Radio-Television Building. We’ll welcome two faculty members dedicated to the space, including a full-time director. Faculty and students will begin to use it to create.
We’ll continue our work to reimagine student media — work will begin on a consolidated mobile app, and beginning this year, several graduate students will be assigned to support student media via their Student Academic Appointments. And we’ll implement the committee’s recommendations for improving the safety and mental health of student journalists.
Near the end of 2024, we welcomed RTVS into The Media School, formalizing a longstanding partnership with the unit. As we progress in this transition, we’re excited to explore synergies we can leverage to better serve the missions of both organizations.
Also on the horizon: a dual master’s degree with the Kelley School of Business, pending approval. And I hope to continue to fundraise around making our travel and study abroad opportunities available for not just some of our students, but all.
At a personal level, I don’t do resolutions. I believe in just trying to move in the general right direction but also allowing yourself some pleasures. I’m doing dry January (although I did have a drink on my birthday), prioritizing exercise as always (hiking, biking, and boxing), trying to eat a little less pizza and pie (but I love pizza and pie so not too much less pizza and pie), planning a trip to Japan with spouse Debra to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary (have never been!), sleeping more (probably a hopeless battle, but I’ll try!), and meditating (or least breeeaaathing). I’ve cooked chicken curry recently, and ribollita, beef bourguignon, and spaghetti with clams, so what other food group might I explore in 2025? And I’m looking forward to hiring an editor for my film, “Orpa,” which I shot in December (an adaptation of “Orpheus” and “Eurydice”); continuing to co-produce and score Debra’s TV series, “True Memories and Other Falsehoods”; and watching Season 2 of “Severance” and “Shrinking.” And re-learning French. And mostly I’m looking forward to my son’s wedding in April.
I hope the holiday season allowed you an opportunity to pause and reset, as well. Here’s to a productive, creative, peaceful, and intentional 2025.
To our Los Angeles community — please know we are holding you in our hearts in this difficult time. Stay safe.
Sincerely,
David Tolchinsky
Dean
The Media School at Indiana University
