Timothy Dalton is living his dream. As a little kid, his passion for making movies came when he was given his first camcorder. Home movies were all he knew in middle school. ‘We went to town,’ he said. ‘I made sure that I was always making a movie, and it stuck with me.’ Dalton, now a senior television, radio, and film major, is one of 28 juniors and seniors in the satellite campus program known as the LA Semester. Students from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) attend classes in Los Angeles and meet people involved in the entertainment industry, said Andrea Asimow, director of the LA Semester. The new program will allow SU students to take advantage of the Hollywood setting. In the past, SU’s location on the East Coast was a disadvantage, Asimow said. ‘These students will have the opportunity to be taught by working professionals in the industry where that industry flourishes,’ she said. The LA Semester was developed from two programs offered to television, radio and film majors in Newhouse, students in the Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries and film majors in VPA, said Joan Adler, director of development at the SU Los Angeles center. The LA Semester will act as a 20-hour-per-week internship to accommodate the interests of each student. In addition to the internship, students will take the rest of the course-required classes on-line during their stay, Asimow said. Students attend their internships in places like the set of ‘The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,’ Sony Pictures Studios and Lifetime Network. Students had the opportunity to participate in Los Angeles-based programs with SU before, including the annual Los Angeles Industry Seminar, a weeklong program for television, radio and film students to meet with SU alumni working in the industry. The Sorkin in LA Learning Practicum, inspired by Aaron Sorkin, an SU alumnus and writer, creator and producer of ‘The West Wing,’ was established in 2006 for film students in VPA to read with talent agents and Hollywood actors to hone their skills. Dalton, the SU senior, will do his internship at Mandalay Entertainment, an independent film production company led by Peter Guber. Guber, a former executive at Columbia Pictures and the former chief executive officer at Sony, will serve as Dalton’s mentor. ‘I felt like I really lucked out with Mr. Guber being my mentor,’ Dalton said. ‘But I think that’s the case for most of the kids in the program. They have these unheard of opportunities with some amazing people.’ Other mentors working in the LA Semester include acting student Jessica Cohen, TLC camera operator Brent Barbano and voice-over agent Jeff Jones. SU and its alumni base in southern California, including Sorkin, contributed aid to start up the program, Asimow said. They will also provide opportunities for students throughout the semester, including internships and public forums. Although the program is only offered to Newhouse and VPA students right now, Asimow said they hope to eventually open the program to all of the SU schools and colleges; a spring semester with the LA Semester is already being developed. ‘We are trying to establish an SU campus at which students can continue their education in areas other than entertainment,’ Asimow said. ‘This is really the beginning of a very important extension: to be able to offer students classes in LA where those classes make sense to be taught.’

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