WINSTON-SALEM – Instructors in the arts need to know their field – but they also need to know how to communicate it to students, which can be a different challenge altogether.

“At the end of the day, our job is to prepare students for professional careers in the arts,” UNC School of the Arts Interim Provost David English says in the accompanying video.

“So we need a faculty that has that deep content expertise – they need to know exactly what’s happening in their professional field.  But then they need to communicate that to a student.”

Susan Ruskin, Dean of UNCSA’s School of Filmmaking and a former Hollywood producer, says she never thought about how to teach someone to produce a multi-million dollar film when she was doing it.

“You’re in the trenches, you’re doing it,” she says.  “But when you have to teach an 18-, 19-, 20-year-old how you did that, then you start to think about it in a different way – and you analyze who you are.

“It’s a remarkable feeling to be able to be doing what I did in the industry, but now it’s for the next generation – and I find that far more gratifying.”