Clarkson wins award for digital-arts media program

POTSDAM — There is some innovative design work going on at Clarkson University.

Clarkson's digital arts and sciences program recently won an award for innovation from the International Digital Media and Arts Association. The program started about five years ago and is, college officials say, one of only a few like it in the country.

"It kind of creates these Leonardo da Vinci-esque students and researchers and artists who can understand how something works on the screen but then they're also able to understand how that was made," said David R. Beck, director of the Clarkson program.

The major combines math and science with art and design to educate students about how to design a video game or computer image, including how to write code, the physics or math behind how something works in real life, as well as how to draw it.

The University of Florida has a similar program for its students, but the two are in the minority in offering classes that combine all the facets equally, according to Peter R. Turner, dean of arts and sciences.

"This is a program that was different from the conventional art programs, different from the conventional game-design programs," Mr. Turner said.

Clarkson was one of only two universities to be given awards at the association's annual conference. It won the "most innovative program" award and the other, for a student showcase, went to Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

The association was founded in 2004 by a group of universities but has grown since then and focuses on promoting and organizing programs like those at Clarkson and the University of Florida.

The Pixar movie "Toy Story," released in 1995, prompted the idea for the digital arts and sciences program, according to Mr. Turner. The creators of that movie gave a talk about how much math and science they had to incorporate to make the film work, and Mr. Turner started thinking about creating an academic program along those lines.

This will be the first class to graduate with students who came to Clarkson specifically for the program. Fewer than 20 students will graduate in the major this year; there are about 50 students studying it, said Mr. Beck, who also teaches digital arts and sciences classes.

Though the major is often thought of as only for video game designers, the degree may be taken in other directions as well. In the program's first graduating class of six students, two are in graduate school for computer science and fine arts, one works for Procter & Gamble, another is in marketing, two started a design business together and another has a digital photography business, according to Mr. Turner.

"I think one of the things that really shows how our program is achieving what we want it to is, if I look at the first graduating class," he said. "They all went in directions that we saw as likely applications of this program."