January 8, 2025
Understanding the role of popular television shows and movies in society—and in students’ own lives—is a central focus of a high-enrollment 100-level course in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Starting in the 2026-27 academic year, the media and cinema studies course “Introduction to Popular TV and Movies” will be one of four U of I courses also taught in the classrooms of select Illinois high schools as part of the new Dual Credit Learning Accelerator initiative.
The four courses are:
- ASTR 150: Killer-Skies: Astro-Disaster
- CS/STAT 107: Data Science Discovery
- MACS 100: Introduction to Popular TV and Movies
- SPED 117: The Culture of Disability
This pilot opportunity marks a new approach for the university in offering its popular general education courses directly to high school students across Illinois in the form of dual credit—at no cost to those students.
“The dual-credit initiative reflects our university’s commitment to expanding access and opportunity for students and families across Illinois,” said Provost John Coleman. “Through the Learning Accelerator’s innovative learning model, we’re bringing transformative educational experiences to high school classrooms and preparing students throughout the state for success in college and beyond.”
Led by the Office of Online Learning and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the Learning Accelerator was funded through the American Talent Initiative IDEAS grant to establish the university’s first dual-credit initiative.
The result is a dual-credit model that can scale up so that an academic unit at the U of I can offer any of its courses to a high school student.
The College of Media is proud to support this initiative, which strengthens the land-grant mission by expanding access to an Illinois education and promoting early student success.
“The dual-credit program offers us the opportunity to bring our exciting media curriculum to students who interact with the media but have a limited idea as to how it’s developed and created,” said Jason P. Chambers, associate dean for access and engagement and professor of advertising. “By providing students access to courses such as MACS 100, they’ll get a chance to consider a media major before arriving at the University of Illinois.”
Through the MACS 100 course, students will build media literacy skills while thinking critically about popular media. One goal of the course is to teach students how to see beyond narrative to address how the film form—such as cinematography, editing, sound, and special effects—generates meaning.
“The most important lesson, I believe, is that even ‘popular’ media, films, and TV shows produced for mass audiences have meaning and complexity,” said Jon Knipp, senior lecturer of media and cinema studies who teaches MACS 100. “These are cultural expressions that tell us a lot about the world and ourselves if we pay attention—and thinking about something deeply makes it more enjoyable.”
The four new dual-credit courses slated for the 2026-27 academic year were developed to showcase the breadth of educational topics offered at Illinois, with faculty partners who are passionate about reaching students from underrepresented populations and interested in presenting their courses in a setting outside of campus that might spark interest in their fields of study.
“We’re trying to offer both an advanced educational experience, but also something that students might not get in a regular high school class,” said Hilary Gross, the Learning Accelerator program coordinator. “The hope is that we might show high school students that college can be whatever you make it.”
For more details about this new program, see the University of Illinois News Bureau press release.
Share on social