News
By Leigh Donahue
|
January 15, 2010
Students who enroll in classes within the new film studies major now have access to more than 300 screenplays donated to the University of Richmond.
The new major, which starts next fall, will be composed of nine courses offered in a variety of departments, including English, modern literature and cultures and maybe business, said Paul Porterfield, the head of the Media Resource Center and adjunct instructor of film studies.
The founder and head of the Virginia Screenwriters Forum, Helene Wagner, approached the school after the Virginia Screenwriters Forum's librarian, Bill Sydnor, stepped down.
"He had a room with boxes and boxes of scripts and it seemed natural to suggest them to U of R," Wagner said in a phone interview.
The university gladly received the donation, which came free of charge.
"We would have had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars at a time when it's really tight at the university to even begin to put together a collection like this," Special Collections Librarian Jim Gwin said.
"Not many college campuses have that kind of resource available," Abigail Cheever, an associate professor of English, said.
