BEA Festival of Media Arts

The Festival is organized under the direction of the BEA Board of Directors. The BEA Festival Committee acts on behalf of the Board organizing each year's competition and Festival Sessions. The Committee functions with a Chair, the Festival Committee and the Chair, appointed by the Board of Directors, directs the activities in planning and executing the Festival. Members of the committee participate and supervise overall planning: juried entries, organizing the awards presentations, the exhibition of winning presentations and related Festival Workshops. Festival subcommittees are organized to conduct specific competitions. Each competition is headed by a Competition Chair. Current Festival Subcommittees include: Radio and Audio Media, Production Aesthetics & Criticism, Documentary, News, Interactive Media, Communication Technology, Student Media Advisors, Small and 2 Year Colleges, and Writing. These Competition Chairs are nominated by the BEA Divisions Chairs and work as a part of the Festival Committee.

The objective of the BEA Festival is to provide a national refereed exhibition of faculty creative activities and a national showcase for our students' work. Exhibition includes recognition, showcase and awards presentations at the international BEA Annual Convention as well as on-line at the BEA Web Site.


2009-2010 Festival of Media Arts Leadership

Festival Chair
Vic Costello
Elon University
vcostello@elon.edu

Competition Chairs

Faculty Audio Competition
Clark Green
Point Loma Nazarene University
ClarkGreer@pointloma.edu

Student Audio Competition
Tony DeMars
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Tony_DeMars@tamu-commerce.edu

Faculty IMM Competition
Mary Schaffer
California State University Northridge
mary@schafferwalls.com

Student IMM Competition
Ed Youngblood
Auburn University
ed.youngblood@gmail.com

Faculty Scriptwriting Competition
Dennis Conway
Valdosta State University
dpconway@valdosta.edu

Student Scriptwriting Competition
Michael McAlexander
Frostburg State University
mcmcalexander@frostburg.edu

Faculty Video Competition
Lowell Briggs
York College of Pennsylvania
lbriggs@ycp.edu

Student Video Competition
Warren Koch
Azusa Pacific University
wkoch@apu.edu

Faculty and Student News Competitions

Mary Blue
Tulane University
mblue@tulane.edu

Peter Casella
University of North Florida
Peter.casella@unf.edu

Kathy Heuston
Austin Peay State University
leek@apsu.edu

Dina Ibrahim
San Francisco State University
dibrahim@sfsu.edu

Two-Year/Small College Competition
Tom McDonnell
Metropolitan Community College
tjmcdonnell3@mccneb.edu

Faculty Documentary Competition
Dan Kimbrough
Misericordia University
www.mccneb.edu

Student Documentary Competition
Ralph Beliveau
University of Oklahoma
Beliveau@ou.edu

Faculty Sports Video Competition
Denise Belafonte-Young
Lynn University
DBelafonte@lynn.edu

Student Sports Competition
Tommy Booras
Western Kentucky University
tommy.booras@wku.edu

Festival Committee
In addition to one competition chair from each of the faculty and student competitions, the Festival Committee includes: Steve Anderson, James Madison University; Robert Avery, University of Utah; Louise Benjamin, University of Georgia; Heather Birks, BEA (Ex-Officio); Vic Costello (Festival Chair), Elon University; Pam D. Tran, University of Alabama; Ken Fischer (Festival Creative Director); University of Oklahoma; Joe Foote, University of Oklahoma; Rustin Greene, James Madison University; Scott Hodgson (Festival Producer), University of Oklahoma; Evan Johnson, University of Wisconsin-River Falls; Thomas McHardy, James Madison University; and John Woody, James Madison University.

Review Board

Mary Beadle, John Carroll University; D'Artagnan Bebel, KRIV; Barbara Cloud, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; John Craft, Arizona State University; Michael Keith, Boston College; Judi Moore Latta, Howard University; Elizabeth Leebron, Temple University; Larry Lichty, Northwestern University; Paula Matabane, Howard University; Fran Matera, Arizona State University; Norm Medoff, North Arizona University; Nikos Metallinos, Concordia University; Michael Monty, Seneca College; Mike Murray, University of Missouri, St. Louis; Peter Orlik, Central Michigan University; David Reese, John Carroll University; William Slater, University of Nevada, Reno; Max Utsler, University of Kansas; Herbert Zettl, San Francisco State University.

The Review Process

Working with the Festival Chair, Festival Committee and the Competition Chairs, the Review Board serves much like an Editorial Board would for a scholarly, refereed journal. The Review Board constitutes a large group of nationally recognized professionals and professors, who are organized into panels, which assist in judging individual full time faculty entries in specific categories. This blind review focuses on the following criteria: professionalism, the use of aesthetic and/or creative elements, sense of structure and timing, production values, technical merit and overall contributions to the discipline in both form and substance. The Festival Committee targets an acceptance award rate of twenty-percent within full time faculty awards.

Faculty Award Categories

BEA Best of Festival King Foundation Award - this award is given at the discretion of the competition chair to the best overall entry in the following faculty competitions: Audio, Interactive Multimedia, Scriptwriting, Video, News, and Documentary.

BEA Best of Competition Award - this award connotes superior quality work, parallel in idea to research accepted for publication in a refereed journal. This award is generally given to the first-place submission within a faculty competition subcategory.

BEA Award of Excellence - this award connotes superior quality work and is generally given to the second or third place finisher within a faculty competition subcategory.

Student Award Categories

Student award categories are established individually for each competition. They are generally designated as first, second, and third place awards.

BEA Best of Festival King Foundation Award - this award is given at the discretion of the competition chair to the best overall entry in the following student competitions: Audio, Interactive Multimedia, Scriptwriting, Video, Two-Year/Small Colleges, Radio News, Television News, Television News Team, and Documentary.