Having combined artistic vision with a range of skill, local students produced creative, informative messages and earned awards at the Ferris State University Higher Learning Commission Video Competition.
“The submissions were very creative and the students did a nice job of communicating what HLC is, its purpose and why it’s important to Ferris,” explained Patrick Bishop, associate professor of Marketing.
Evan Simon of Big Rapids earned the first-place prize of $1,000 at the Ferris State University Higher Learning Commission Film Festival on Nov. 22, which featured a showing of the winning videos.
Members of the Ferris Media Communications Association earned the second-place prize
of $750; the group was comprised of Christopher Gill, Steve McKay, Mariellen Krolikowski,
Ian O’Malley, Jon Sepanski and Cassie Tyler. O’Malley was the official producer of
the group’s winning video.
In order to guarantee that the degrees earned by Ferris students continue to meet
University standards of excellence and have the respect of both employees and other
educational institutions, Ferris undergoes an accreditation process through the HLC.
Reaccreditation by HLC involves both a self-study process and a peer-review process which includes a site visit by a team of HLC officials. The video competition aimed to provide students with the opportunity to inform their peers of the HLC process through short videos.
“All of the submissions were of good quality and communicated what HLC does for the purpose of the event,” Bishop noted. “There were a few that stood out in regards to pulling it all together from the message to the creativity, to the clarity of what was trying to be said.”
Bishop chaired the video competition’s panel of judges. Other judges included Associate English Professor Christine Vonder Haar and Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Michael Cairns, co-chairs of the HLC Self-Study Steering Committee; Television and Digital Media Production Professor Fred Wyman; Digital Media Production Specialist Jeff Gabalis; Interim Director of Marketing Client Services Leah Nixon; and students Morgan Toms, Heather Schonmeier and Aaron Krol.