By Eileen Conrad

UCSB’s Center for Film, Television, and New Media will be named for Emmy Award-winning television producers Marcy Carsey and Dick Wolf in recognition of contributions totaling $5-million toward the construction of a new instructional and research facility for the interdisciplinary center.

The 15,600-square-foot Carsey-Wolf Center will include a public film theater, production facilities, screening rooms, computer labs, archives, and meeting rooms for scholars, students, and visiting fellows from related industries. The architectural firm of Kallmann, McKinnell and Wood of Boston has designed it. Through the center, faculty from the arts, humanities, and sciences collaboratively teach and conduct research on all forms of mass media from a variety of perspectives.

“My family and I are proud to be associated with UC Santa Barbara’s Center For Film, Television, and New Media,” said Carsey, whose two children are UCSB alumni. “UC Santa Barbara will soon have premier facilities equal to the reputation of this pioneering program, which is becoming widely known for its interdisciplinary and highly creative approach to teaching and research.”

Wolf said he was “honored to be part of UCSB’s cutting edge program. This center at UC Santa Barbara will help shape the future of film, television, and new media by educating the best and the brightest on an interdisciplinary level,” he said.

The center brings together students and scholars from nationally renowned departments of film and media studies and communication, as well as 15 other departments, which now teach and conduct research at various campus locations. Major projects underway at the center include an environmental media initiative, a media ownership project, and a student internship program.

“UC Santa Barbara is extremely grateful to Marcy Carsey and Dick Wolf for their guidance, leadership, and extraordinary commitment to our campus and this landmark project,” said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “We applaud them for their bold vision, and are honored and proud to have two of the most creative forces in the history of television permanently associated with our campus.”

The privately funded facility will be part of a state-funded academic building complex that is scheduled to break ground in early 2007. Carsey and Wolf serve on the center’s advisory board. Carsey is also a trustee of The UCSB Foundation, and a longtime benefactor of the campus.

Thus far, nearly $10-million in philanthropic support has been contributed to the innovative interdisciplinary media center and its new home. Carsey and Wolf were the lead donors for the project. An additional $10-million is needed in private funds for equipment and programmatic endowment for the center.

David Marshall, dean of humanities and fine arts and executive dean of the College of Letters and Science, thanked Carsey and Wolf for their “support of UC Santa Barbara’s interdisciplinary and liberal arts-based approach to the study of media, as well as their understanding of the center’s contributions to public policy.”