Ithaca College Roy H. Park School of Communications

Overview

The Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College is an undergraduate media school in Ithaca, New York, ranked among the top 25 film programs in the United States by The Hollywood Reporter. The Park School offers four production-focused majors across film, documentary, television, and screenwriting, housed in a 79,000-square-foot building with nearly $10 million in production equipment and facilities.

Tuition for the 2026-27 academic year is $59,440, with total estimated cost of attendance at $83,020 including housing, meals, books, and personal expenses. The school enrolls approximately 1,500 students across all communications majors and maintains an alumni network of over 15,000 graduates working in media industries, concentrated in New York City and Los Angeles.

Students who want a liberal arts education alongside production training, with access to professional-grade equipment and a structured Los Angeles internship semester, should consider the Park School. Students seeking a conservatory-style program where they focus exclusively on film production from day one should look at dedicated film schools like AFI, Chapman, or UNCSA instead.

Programs Offered

The Park School administers four production-focused majors through its Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies:

• BFA in Film - the primary production degree, covering directing, cinematography, editing, and sound for live action, documentary, and animation. Students work with both digital and celluloid formats. The program combines core production requirements with critical studies courses in cinema, still photography, and studio art.
• BA in Documentary Studies and Production - a program blending documentary theory with hands-on production, focused on nonfiction storytelling.
• BS in Television, Photography, and Digital Media - a broadcast and media production program covering television studio production, field production, photography, and digital platforms.
• BFA in Writing for Film, Television, and Emerging Media - a screenwriting-focused degree covering script development for film, TV, and new media formats.

Available minors include Animation and Visual Effects, Audio Production for Television and Film, Still Photography, International Communications, and Writing for Film, Television, and Emerging Media.

Facilities and Equipment

The Park School building contains two television studios with master control, a sound stage, a remote TV broadcast truck used for live sports coverage, audio and radio studios, photography studios, 14 media labs and classrooms, and a 200-seat auditorium with 4K projection and 7.1 surround sound.

The Park Portable Equipment Center and Services (PPECS) manages over 200 cameras available for student checkout. The inventory includes:

• RED WEAPON with Helium 8K sensor, paired with Zeiss LWZ T2.6 15-45mm zoom and 6 Sony CineAlta T2 prime lenses (20/25/35/50/85/135mm)
• RED Dragon 4.5K sensor with Sigma Art f/1.8 18-35mm and 50-100mm lens kits
• 2 Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K cameras (one G2 model with ultra high speed shooting)
• 120+ video cameras (Sony and JVC)
• 25+ DSLR cameras (Canon, Nikon, Sony)
• 30+ film cameras (Aaton, Arri, Bolex)
• 40+ large format film photo cameras (Hasselblad, Mamiya, Calumet, Horseman)
• Lighting kits with Nanlite FS-60B bi-color LED spotlights, Fresnel and softbox attachments
• Sennheiser ME66 shotgun microphones, Manfrotto fluid head tripods, Dana Dolly kits, 48-inch camera sliders

The building also has 34 Macintosh digital photography stations, 12 Epson large and medium format printers, a film processing lab with 18 enlargers, and 4 film processing darkrooms.

PPECS processes over 1,500 separate equipment checkouts per semester, with approximately 20,000 pieces of equipment moving in and out.

Los Angeles Program

The Park School operates a semester-long Los Angeles program at the James B. Pendleton Center, open to juniors and seniors in all Park School majors and minors. Students complete 6 to 8 credits of internship work during fall and spring semesters (3 to 5 credits in summer) at organizations across film, television, journalism, public relations, advertising, and new media.

Tuition for the LA program matches the on-campus rate. Housing is arranged through Kapi Residences, an independent company that contracts furnished apartments near the Pendleton Center. Housing costs in Los Angeles are higher than on-campus housing in Ithaca. The total LA semester cost is listed at $29,720.

Tuition and Financial Aid

For the 2026-27 academic year:

Part-time tuition (under 12 or over 18 credits) is $1,982 per credit. Ithaca College offers merit-based and need-based financial aid. The college provides a net price calculator on its financial aid website.

Students should also budget for additional production materials costs. The school requires entering students to own a laptop computer, and students in film and photography programs are expected to furnish their own DSLR or mirrorless camera for some still photography courses. Motion picture film, photographic film and paper, and digital storage media are additional out-of-pocket expenses.

Standout Faculty

The Park School's faculty are working filmmakers, cinematographers, and writers who teach within a liberal arts context. The school's cross-disciplinary culture draws faculty from documentary, experimental film, and television writing backgrounds.

• Andy Watts - Associate Professor and Film Program Director. Lighting technician on War of the Worlds, co-writer of Crooked & Narrow, with short films on HBO and Cinemax. Teaches film production and screenwriting.
• Cathy Crane - Professor and CPMA Degree Program Director. Guggenheim Fellow. Director of Pasolini's Last Words, The Manhattan Front, and Crossing Columbus. Teaches directing actors for film.
• Julie Blumberg - Associate Professor and WFTEM Program Director. Staff Writer and Story Editor on Felicity for J.J. Abrams, co-writer of The Manhattan Front. Teaches writing for screen media and series TV.
• Mitch McCabe - Associate Professor. Guggenheim Fellow. Director of 23 MILE and Civil War Surveillance Poems, with unscripted TV credits for A&E and Discovery. Teaches documentary and experimental filmmaking.
• Bradley Rappa - Associate Professor. Documentaries screened at Telluride and TIFF, including Losing Ground, Fall, and Anthropocene. Teaches cinematography and documentary filmmaking.
• Jack Powers - Professor and Chair. Teaches TV and film industries and media law.
• Steven Ginsberg - Pendleton Endowed Chair. Former Variety reporter and critic, screenwriter. Teaches screenwriting.

Notable Alumni

Park School alumni include:

• Bob Iger (BS 1973) - Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. Iger started at ABC in 1974 after graduating from Ithaca with a television-radio degree. He now serves on the Ithaca College Board of Trustees and regularly Skype-calls into the school's first-year S'Park course.

• David Muir (BA 1995) - Anchor and Managing Editor of ABC World News Tonight. Muir anchored ICTV News as a first-semester student at Ithaca before moving to WTVH-TV in Syracuse, then WCVB in Boston, then ABC Network.
• David Boreanaz (BS 1991) - Actor in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Bones.

• Mark Romanek - Film and music video director. Credits include Never Let Me Go, One Hour Photo, and music videos for Taylor Swift ("Shake It Off") and Michael and Janet Jackson ("Scream").
• Mike Royce - Television writer and producer. Credits include Everybody Loves Raymond and the One Day at a Time remake for Netflix.
• Rodrigo Bellott - Director whose debut Sexual Dependency was the first Bolivian film nominated for a Best Foreign Language Academy Award.

What Students Should Know

The Park School is not a conservatory. Students take substantial coursework outside their major through Ithaca College's liberal arts curriculum. This produces graduates with broader academic foundations but means fewer total hours spent on production compared to dedicated film schools like AFI (2-year MFA only), Chapman (BFA with production from year one), or UNCSA (conservatory-style BFA).

The school's strengths are in television production, documentary, and broadcast journalism. The remote broadcast truck gives students hands-on experience with live multi-camera sports production, which is unusual at the undergraduate level. The documentary program has produced Fulbright Award recipients.

Ithaca's location in the Finger Lakes region provides low-cost location shooting opportunities but limits access to a major film production hub. The LA program partially addresses this by placing students in entertainment industry internships for a semester, but students spend most of their four years in upstate New York.

Cost of living in Ithaca is lower than New York City or Los Angeles, which reduces total expenses. However, at $59,440 per year in tuition alone, the Park School is priced at the higher end of private university rates. Students should compare financial aid packages carefully against public university film programs.

Student Film Examples

Park School students produce films across the BFA in Film, BA in Documentary Studies and Production, and BFA in Writing for Film, Television, and Emerging Media programs. The school's PPECS equipment center processes over 1,500 separate checkouts per semester. Student films screen at the annual Park School Film Festival and at festivals including SXSW and Tribeca.

See Also

For comparing communications-school film programs with dedicated film schools, see Choosing a Film School. To explore audio delivery standards for broadcast and streaming, use the LUFS Calculator. For planning production budgets for student films, use the Production Budget Calculator.