Mission statement
BCNM is an interdisciplinary research center that studies and shapes media transition and emergence from diverse perspectives. Through critical thinking and making, we cultivate technological equity and fairness in our classrooms, in our communities, and on the internet.
Vision statement
We focus on questions of how radical shifts in technology intersect with radical shifts in society, culture, politics, and economics. In this moment of transformation, BCNM leads what must be a global effort to build just and equitable technological futures, especially by honoring and centering women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Global South, ability diverse, and socioeconomically disadvantaged peoples as makers and users of new media. We do this by platforming and maintaining inclusive communities for our curriculum and degrees, faculty and student research, and public outreach.
BCNM Strategic Plan 2023-2024
Interdisciplinary Research
Goal: Champion vanguard interdisciplinary research on new media.
Strategy 1:
Recruit to UC Berkeley and BCNM faculty whose research focuses on race, gender, and technology.
Mentor and support our incoming faculty member Hannah Zeavin, who will have a 50% teaching and service obligation to BCNM, while being housed in the History Department.
Mentor and support our incoming Executive Committee member and potential future BCNM faculty member Nicole Starosielski.
Nurture relationships with units across campus in order to submit successful FTE requests, particularly in interdisciplinary areas that will serve multiple departments on campus.
Strategy 2:
Champion inclusive, collaborative new media research by our UC Berkeley faculty and students.
Diversify the BCNM executive committee through targeted outreach, encouraging participation from faculty from underrepresented communities, who can not only advance the Center’s mission of centering more inclusive research on new media but also serve as advisors on the dissertations of our graduate students. Operate funds that platform and focus on research topics centering diverse communities. Offer faculty research seed grants, and students research and conference grants, prioritizing research on contemporary human rights movements.
Deconstruct and rebuild our tools for telling spatial stories through Reorienting the Map, a collaborative map-making project with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and studio.geo? Reorienting the Map proposes a series of interlinked collaborative cartographic works, which gradually scale up from the experimental to the infrastructural. [Clancy Wilmott]
Build a curated, web-based repository of handmade 3D objects that are designed with an intersectional, feminist lens as a Missing Object Library (MOL). MOL will offer an alternative to commercial, status quo storefronts that provide digital assets for game design and special effects. MOL will be an open platform with downloadable models that accurately represent the world we inhabit. MOL disrupts historical gatekeeping performed by “neutral” marketplaces by offering 3D modeled objects that span a wide range of identities, abilities, and affinities. [Jill Miller & Asma Kazmi]
Support faculty in future new media grant applications.
Strategy 3:
Create opportunities for BCNM students to publish in the field of new media studies.
Editors of the ‘Media Crease’ will secure a publishing contract for the book from a leading academic press. [Abigail De Kosnik]
Curriculum and Student Development
Goal: Offer courses on histories and futures of technology that combine arts, design, humanities, social sciences, data, and engineering approaches and foreground diverse makers and users of new media.
Strategy 1:
Platform curricula that emphasize issues of technology and social difference.
Offer a revised NWMEDIA 201 that foregrounds experimental art and provides students with studio experience. Continue to support our faculty in course outreach to ensure a minimum 80% enrollment in all BCNM courses. Provide course grants to faculty teaching new media courses that emphasize issues of technology and social difference to enhance the student experience through speakers, equipment etc. [Jill Miller, Asma Kazmi]
Strategy 2:
Develop more robust summer sessions programming and funding pathways.
Offer our first large enrollment online summer sessions course and begin to devise a future large enrollment course that could complement this offering. [Matthew Berry, Nicole Starosielski]
Continue to support our faculty in applying for teaching grants that will enrich student learning experiences. [Emma Fraser, Clancy Wimott, Jill Miller, Asma Kazmi]
Strategy 3:
Establish an OSKI (Open Skills and Knowledge Initiative) Tech program to widen participation in technology for students in the arts and social sciences.
Support faculty in securing a grant from the Instructional Technology and Innovation office to purchase appropriate instructional technology that will enable the revision of NWMEDIA courses to include the learning of technical skills through mobile and collaborative teaching resources. [Emma Fraser, Clancy Wilmott, Asma Kazmi]
Offer 8 introductory skills sessions for students to learn new tools in a variety of disciplines and to introduce students to on-campus digital-focused spaces.
Strategy 4:
Ensure the BCNM community continues to have access to spaces for classes, events, meetings, and research to maintain community and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
Maintain the BCNM Commons for community access, while planning and budgeting for a new home in Bechtel Engineering.
Outreach
Goal: Host public events that define important and unexpected new directions of research for new media scholars, engineers, artists, and policymakers.
Strategy 1:
Platform diverse users and makers of new media in our public lecture series.
Continue our Indigenous Technologies thread throughout our ATC and HTNM programs with at least three speakers in the 2023-2024 year. Launch a Latinx Media Ecologies thread throughout our ATC and HTNM programs with at least four speakers in the 2023-2024 year to highlight Latinx thinkers and makers of new media.
Strategy 2:
Develop public workshop pilot for Spring 2024.
Build out the human resources tools and agreements to launch a paid public workshop pilot in Summer 2024. Develop accessible, exciting content for our target market and establish a communications plan to reach our audience. [Abigail De Kosnik, Tom McEnaney]
Strategy 3:
Strengthen ties to industry and increase the visibility of UC Berkeley contributions to the field.
Integrate critical conversations with developers into our public programs and classrooms, particularly highlighting the work of our alumni and students.
Strategy 4:
Connect the BCNM mission with local arts communities and develop partnerships to support groups on campus.
Work closely with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust on issues of technology and indigeneity. Liaise with NAGPRA committees to provide advice on tech related concerns. Offer a series of cultural analytics events to showcase the cultural analytics work taking place at BCNM and on campus through Digital Humanities. Build a relationship with both established and smaller arts institutions, such as SFMOMA, the Exploratorium, Gray Area, the Goethe-Institut and Kala through our public programming to increase BCNM visibility and extend BCNM’s impact beyond Berkeley. [Clancy Wilmott, Kimiko Ryokai, Tom McEnaney, Claudia Von Vacano, Asma Kazmi, Jill Miller]
Strategy 5:
Create a pipeline for AAPI Media Creatives from Cal in the entertainment industry.
Review our AAPI Media Creatives Fellowship pilot and plan for a future fundraising drive or option to build on the Fellowship. Continue to provide financial support and networking opportunities for AAPI students to help them pursue careers in the entertainment industry. Offer an additional AAPI in Media event in Spring 2024 with leading entertainment executives and creatives.
Administration
Goal: Provide superior administrative support to the administration of the Center.
Strategy 1:
Manage the Center’s operations while the Associate Director takes maternity leave.
The administrative team will work together to plan for and manage operations in advance of Fall 2023.
Strategy 2:
Plan for website development and improvements.
Address website security issues, WCAG 2.0 requirements in 2023-2024, and plan for increased legibility of BCNM through a website redesign in 2024-2025.
For BCNM's Strategic Plan 2022-2023, please visit here.
For BCNM's Strategic Plan 2021-2022, please visit here.