Full Sail University is a private, for-profit university in Winter Park, Florida. The school was founded in 1979 in Dayton, Ohio as Full Sail Recording Workshop. Full Sail relocated to Florida in 1980, adding video production and film production courses and, with the move in 1989 to its current campus, expanded its curriculum to include other entertainment and media-related areas of study. Full Sail began offering online degrees in 2007. The school is partly owned by TA Associates, a private equity firm.
Full Sail is nationally accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC) to award associate degrees, bachelor's degrees, and master's degrees in audio, film, design, computer animation, business, and other fields. It has approximately 8900 undergraduate and 170 postgrad students.
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History
Full Sail was founded by Jon Phelps in Dayton, Ohio, in 1979. Operating under the name "Full Sail Recording Workshop" at that time, the school was established to train students on the production side of entertainment and music. The curriculum was solely focused on recording arts at first, consisting of courses for students to learn how to become audio engineers. The school relocated to Orlando, Florida, in 1980 and new courses were added to the core recording arts program. In 1989, Full Sail moved to its current location outside of Winter Park, Florida, in unincorporated Orange County; the following year, it was accredited to grant specialized associate's degrees.
Full Sail began to receive notice within the audio industry for its programs, and for three years in a row, 1989-1991, the school won Mix magazine's TEC (Technical Excellence and Creativity) award for Best Recording School/Program.
Enrollment doubled between 1989 and 1991, at a time of increased interest in film and media studies. Full Sail expanded accordingly by adding classrooms and equipment, and increasing the number of courses offered. This accelerated period of expansion was not without its challenges and the school encountered financial difficulties in 1992, which were subsequently resolved as it entered a period of more conservative growth. Between 1995 and 1999, specialized associate degrees or associate degrees were added in computer animation, digital media, game design and development, and show production and touring. All of these degrees were later expanded into full bachelor's degree programs.
In 2005 Rolling Stone called Full Sail "one of the five best music programs in the country". The first bachelor's degree program, a Bachelor of Science degree in entertainment business, was made available at the school in 2005. In 2007, the first master's degree program was offered--also in entertainment business. Online degree programs began in 2007 as well--the first of which was an online adaptation of the existing Entertainment Business Master of Science.
The additions of the master's degree programs, among other factors, led to the school being recognized as a "university" by the state of Florida. Its name was officially changed from Full Sail Real World Education to Full Sail University in 2008, after attaining university status from the Florida Department of Education's Commission for Independent Education. The campus expanded at this time with the addition of a 1,780-foot-long backlot with 18 city facades, designed to replicate the sets used in production of actual Hollywood films and television shows, which later expanded to 2,078 linear feet.
As the university grew in size and student body between 2006 and 2011, the curriculum and degree programs were broadened as well, adding programs such as a bachelor of science in sports marketing and media and a master of science degree in game design.
Full Sail drew national attention when 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney cited it as an example of the way rising costs of education can be solved. Romney did not mention that its chief executive, Bill Heavener, is a major campaign donor and fund-raiser. Later that year, WWE began filming all episodes of its internet television show WWE NXT, which serves as the flagship show for WWE's developmental territory NXT, at Full Sail University.
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Campus
Full Sail University's main campus is located outside of Winter Park, Florida, in unincorporated Orange County, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) northeast of downtown Orlando. The college campus contains the central administrative offices, university library, and academic buildings, including a production backlot, more than 110 studios and production environments, film backlot, auditorium, and Full Sail Studios. The university moved to Winter Park in 1989. Renovation and expansion into surrounding buildings began in 1995, growing into three additional buildings by 2004. In 2009, the university expanded into a fifth building, a 49,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) space near campus to accommodate educators for the online degree program.
A 2.2 acre (0.89 ha) facility named Full Sail Studios opened in 2010, consisting of a 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) multi-purpose venue and a two-story 10,600-square-foot (980 m2) recording studio and game production studio named Blackmoor after the late Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and instructor from 1999 to 2009. This addition also completed the film backlot, totaling 2078 linear ft (633 m) and 19 outdoor scenic environments.
In November 2010 the Sports Lab Powered by ESPN was added to the campus, a facility for research and development of new studio and remote technologies. The lab works in association with the ESPN Innovation Lab located at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World and is the only sports technology lab to be constructed at a Florida college or university. Two months later, approximately 200 Full Sail Online administration and support team employees moved into the Gateway Center in Downtown Orlando. Also in 2011, the university announced plans to construct an 86,000-square-foot (8,000 m2) educational building to house 475 faculty and staff, additional film and television soundstages and classrooms, and is scheduled for completion in Spring 2012.
Academics
Academic degree programs are primarily focused on audio, film and media production, video game design, animation and other studies related to the media and entertainment industries.
According to The New York Times, Full Sail has many of the same problems as other institutions in the for-profit college industry. They reported that some of the university's academic programs have high loan burdens and low graduation rates. The $81,000 video game art program graduated 38 percent of its students, who carried a median debt load of nearly $59,000 in federal and private loans in 2008. The Times cited other Full Sail degree programs as having higher graduation rates, noting that the master's in entertainment business, "a yearlong program with a $36,245 tuition, graduated 80 percent of its students, nearly 63 percent of them on time." According to Inside Higher Ed, "a closer look at the numbers reveals that graduation rates are not a major problem at Full Sail: the overall graduation rate is a fairly high 78 percent, according to federal data." In the same article, however, The New York Times noted that Full Sail's own students have posted criticisms of the school, including some that call Full Sail a "scam" because of its high costs, low placement, and difficulties with credit transfer.
The college was named FAPSC School/College of the Year (an award for which only career colleges in Florida were eligible) by the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges (FAPSC) in 2008 and 2011, 21st-century best practices in distance learning by the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) in 2011, and was the recipient of a 2011 New Media Consortium Center for Excellence award.
In 2007, Full Sail University offered its first online degree program, a master's degree in Entertainment Business. Full Sail custom-built a learning management system for use with their online courses; the LMS is Macintosh-based, and utilizes content created by an in-house curriculum development team in conjunction with campus-based instructors.
Although the university is not regionally accredited, it is nationally accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC). The college has been subject to criticism regarding transferability of credits, as credits from nationally accredited schools often do not transfer to regionally accredited schools.
Full Sail has a 55% overall graduation rate and a 21.1% student loan default rate, higher than the national student loan default rate of 11.3%. It is also listed on the Century Foundation's website as a university which includes restrictive clauses in the enrollment contracts, which are intended to minimize the legal recourse available to students in the event of disputes.
Notable people
Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson taught at the school from 2000 through 2008. Stedman Graham began teaching as an adjunct professor in 2009.
On April 20, 2009, Full Sail marked its 30th anniversary with the opening of the Full Sail University Hall of Fame. Machinedrum attended Full Sail.
Howard Stern's head media producer, JD Harmeyer is one of the most well known alumni to graduate from Full Sail University.
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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