Professor Interview

Interview with Professor Bradley Kaye.

Contact Info:

Email: Bradley.Kaye@colostate.edu

Office: Clark C-235A

Interview:

Q: What led you to be so interested in media communications?

A: What we do is media communications and things like that, so effectively it is what I do, my

thing is movies. This ties into journalism because it is a way to think about how we write about

society. This is why the media communications portion of the PHD program was a really good

fit for me.

Q: What part of Media Communications do you get the most satisfaction from?

A: Working one on one with students. I have had about a half dozen students become either

GDA’s or personal assistants. I had one particular student who worked on a grant with me, and I

have also helped mentor a student’s paper that went on to win the writing competition at CSU. It

is those interactions that are important to me, helping people who want more is probably my

favorite part of that.

Q: Why is studying Media Communications so important?

A: This holds true for other forms of media as well, but I will give you my answer for film. Film

is nothing more or less than a tangible source of evidence for social norms and values, so we are

able to see the story of the world in those moments. It is the same thing for a journalistic point of

view when we think about the rhetoric that we use, the words that we choose in those moments
to talk about important world events and things of that nature. That’s what media is to me, a

portion of accumulative story of humanity.

Q: What advice would you give for someone who wants to follow suit and take the route you

took?

A: If your including grad school my advice is don’t. It is not a great time for it since we don’t

know what our world is going to look like after all of this undone. I am a nontraditional student

all the way through, I went to grad school at like 31, so it is a very different path as an adult, and

it is so much easier. I remember it being kind of hard as a kid and it is kind of a joke now, so my

advice would be to go live in the real world for a bit before you jump into grad school.

Q: If you could do things all over again would you choose the same path for yourself and if not,

what would you change?

A: Oh yes, I had a weird path, I always thought I was going to be a lawyer, but then I flunked

out of law school, but I am happy where I am at, so I would have chosen it again. If I knew I was

going to love teaching this much, which I should have known since I have coached soccer for

over 20 years, I should have known it. Knowing then what I know right now I would choose it

again, absolutely.

Q: How could someone evaluate if they have the necessary skills for a path in media

communications?

A: Gosh I mean I have 57 papers at this point, you have to love to write, and mostly read. If you

read obsessively and enjoy it, I think anyone could do this, because reading is really what got me

here more than anything else, because you learn to write by hearing other people’s voices, and so

you take on those voices and that’s how you learn to right well. Writing is practice of course, so
you practice it like you would anything else. If you don’t love reading it is a hopeless pursuit in

my opinion.

Q: If someone already has a love for reading and writing what are some important skills to

develop in order to sharpen one’s blade?

A: Being comfortable in front of a crowd, there is not even anything that is close after those first

two. Having watched colleagues and people in my master cohort and PHD cohort struggle

sometimes standing in front of students, and it also helps that I look older than you all so that is

super helpful. Being comfortable in that spot is super important, and it is not always easy. The

first time in front of 200 people in ESP 100 or 106 or something, it is a different experience and

so feeling at peace with that is very critical.

Q: What jobs and experiences have led you to your current position?

A: It would all be tangential, it is hard to believe, but I worked at a bank. It didn’t lead me here,

but it at least told me something I definitely did not want to do. I guess coaching soccer was

probably the most important one, because essentially, I have taught my whole adult life, and so it

is just an extension of what I do and day to day things, even if it is outside of it I mentor, I teach,

I coach, it is all kind of the same thing to me. I constantly have people asking me how to do

things, I have to teach for my parents because I built their computers for them. It is just normal

for me to be a teacher, so just everything, I guess. Even when I worked at the bank, I told people

how dumb they were about banking regulations, which made me very popular as you can

imagine.
 Reflection

This interview was very beneficial because I always knew I was interested in what

Professor Kaye does. Still, I was not sure what it is called. I initially thought most of these

questions would be centralized around the idea of journalism. Still, I was pleasantly surprised

when most of these questions were answered with a centralized media communication idea. My

understanding was Professor Kaye was a journalist.

Nevertheless, within the first question, he cleared that up for me and talked about the

media communications side of things and gave way better insight into what he does. Within the

first question, he explains that media communications are similar to journalism because “it is a

way to think about how we write about society.” It was very nice to talk to him about cinema and

different films because I also have a deep-rooted love for movies. I tend to be the most

knowledgeable and cultured about film wherever I go; however, Professor Kaye showed me the

knowledge gap between us. He knows far more about cinema than anyone I have ever met and

brought up countless movies that I have never seen. For some odd reason, this reminded me of

my first day of doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or seeing someone do their first day of BJJ. It reminded

me of this because the first day you start doing it, typically the first person you will roll with is

the best in the class that day, and they do this to show the skill gap. This day will be one of the

most humbling days of your life because you start truly realizing how easily this person is

making you tap out. Suppose people are a good sport about it and genuinely want to learn BJJ. In

that case, this day will be extraordinarily motivating and enticing. This interview reminded me

that I saw how much more Professor Kaye knew about cinema than I. It enticed me to want to
learn more about this continuously. The way Professor Kaye talks about media communications

and cinema is both poetically and intellectually stunning. The best example I can give is when he

says, “Film is nothing more or less than a real source of evidence for social norms and values so

that we can see the story of the world in those moments. It is the same thing for a journalistic

point of view when we think about the rhetoric that we use, the words that we choose in those

moments to talk about important world events and things of that nature. That’s what media is to

me, a portion of the accumulative story of humanity.” I have heard him say similar things in

class before when discussing film, but in a one-on-one environment, I felt as if he was

programming this knowledge into me. In conclusion, I have always been a person who tries to

find the deeper meaning in every movie and book, and honestly everything in life, but the more

profound understanding of film and media communications I gained from this interview is

something I am genuinely grateful for.