In the transition of programming at Chapman Dodge college, a program of 20 students who each pay more than 60K a year in tuition fees fell through the cracks.  When these students applied and were admitted to Chapman University under the Television Writing and Production program, they were promised the opportunity to write and produce our own pilots in place of a thesis film. 

The current dean of Dodge College doesn't respect the television department and is actively doing everything he can to provide incentives to shut out these students from a full education.  For starters, Dean Stephen Galloway is revising the program so TV pilots are counted as short films that are handed off to students in the Film Production major who at this point have already chosen scripts. Moreover by counting the TWP Pilots as a thesis film, they are forcing the pilots to cut down the runtime from 18 minutes to 12 minutes as well as cutting the budget in comparison to the other thesis films as thesis films receive $30,000 each but the pilots are forced to split one order of $30,000 amongst each other. Chapman also limits crowdfunding for the junior pilots, further kneecapping them.

Every class before the class of 2025 got the opportunity to produce a pilot and working on the pilot provides a much different experience than Short Form or any of the other short film programs like APs, IPs, or the Thesis. By kneecapping the program, Chapman is depriving students of a unique learning opportunity and depriving seniors a chance to be showrunners. 

For the money these students are paying, they are getting the short end of their education. This petition is being made to get the attention of Dean Galloway and those in charge of the Dodge College Curriculum to give TWP a real and fair chance to produce their pilots as promised when they were first admitted.

With this petition we are requesting the return of the The Pilot Pre-Production and Pilot Production classes (TWP 445 and TWP 488 respectively) as well as the opportunity for writers and students to work on an alternative form of media besides short films.