November 20th 2023.
For the first time in the United States, a four-year curriculum will be available to students of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) that focuses on equipping them with the skills to succeed in media sales, operations, and marketing. This is an unprecedented move as no other university or college in the U.S. has ever offered such a curriculum.
Juniors and seniors at Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College will be eligible to register for the courses starting Fall 2026. The curriculum will be based on the successful Media Sales Institute (MSI) program, which has been training college graduates for media sales jobs since 2000 and has an alumni network of over a thousand graduates.
On June 15th, 2023, the MSI Foundation, in partnership with Clark Atlanta University, Gray Television, and the CAU School of Business and Division of Communications Arts within the School of Arts & Sciences, unveiled plans for the new Media Sales curriculum. The design and accreditation of the curriculum is expected to take five years.
Silvanus Udoka, Dean of the CAU School of Business expressed his excitement and pride in being part of this project. He said, “Building on the very successful MSI curriculum, the expanded reach that this program will offer promises to accomplish our shared goals of sustained creation of primed media sales professionals for today and tomorrow.”
The new curriculum will be housed in CAU’s School of Business and will focus on radio, television, cable, print, digital, and interactive media sales. It will be open to all majors in the AUC. The MSI Foundation, along with its funding partners, will underwrite the five-year design cost. Starting in 2028, the program’s cost will be supported by student enrollment at CAU’s School of Business and the Division of Communication Arts in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Sponsoring companies will also have the chance to be a part of the curriculum's design as “adjunct professionals” and “adjunct practitioners”. Gray Television President and Co-CEO Pat LaPlatney expressed his enthusiasm for the program, saying, “The entire industry will benefit from having students who will have spent years learning how best to help advertisers tell their stories across so many platforms.”
Jeffrey P. Myers, one of the MSD developers, also spoke about the long journey that started with the MSI program in 2000 and the strategy to recruit diverse, pre-screened, and highly qualified entry-level employees. He said, “We are proud of an amazing alumni network that consists of more than 1,000 graduates being employed in media sales departments.”
This groundbreaking media sales curriculum is sure to revolutionize the American media industry and provide students with the necessary skills to succeed in this field.
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