News

June 2008: EMC at Champlain works with UVM to create medical video game

Champlain College’s Emergent Media Center will team with the University of Vermont College of Medicine to develop an innovative video game that will help cystic fibrosis (CF) patients better manage their condition.  The project is funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its Health Games Research program.

May 2008: Ann DeMarle in Seven Days newspaper

EMC director Ann DeMarle is quoted in a recent article in Seven Days on the growing surge of non-voice applications and Internet browsing capabilities in mobile phone useage.

February 2008: Students create gamelets at Meeting Professionals International conference

Champlain game development students work through the entire conceptual process, action steps and production of two industry-related gamelets while onsite at the Meeting Professionals International Professional Education Conference in Houston.

January 2008: John Cohn of IBM works with the Emergent Media Center

John Cohn, PhD, chief scientist of design automation in the IBM Systems and Technology Group, has been working with students and faculty in the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College on a multimedia educational piece.

Governor proposes incubator project with Emergent Media Center

In his annual State of the State Address on January 10, 2008, Vermont Governor James Douglas outlined job creation and technology strategies that included funding a pilot project with Champlain College’s Emergent Media Center.

November 2007: Students showcase medical- and healthcare-related games in Boston

Game development students showcased the virtues of games beyond entertainment at the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) Innovation Congress 2007 in Boston.

October 2007: Champlain Students featured at Learning 2007

Champlain College game development students have been selected for a serious game experiment in front of 2,000 business people at global Learning 2007 conference from October 21-24, 2007.

November 2006: America's Army game developers discuss their "serious game"

	Major (R) Chris Chambers of America's Army speaks to Champlain students about the history and challenges of creating the serious game.

On November 17, Major (R) Chris Chambers, the deputy project director for America's Army, was joined by his fellow game developers in a presentation to students in Champlain College's Electronic Game & Interactive Design program and Electronic Game Programming program.

These game developers come to Champlain as part of a speaker series that has brought developers from across the US and Canada from some of the biggest names in the industry:

• Electronic Arts (EA) Vancouver and Montreal, with video games such as the top-selling Madden NFL Football, The Sims and Harry Potter
• Ubisoft, publishers of Star Wars, Winnie the Pooh and Splinter Cell
• Microsoft's Studio RX -- Microsoft publishes titles that include Halo, Age of Empires and Flight Simulator X
• Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M) of Montreal, producers of titles such as Scooby Doo Kim Possible and Ice Age  
• Cryptic Studios of California, creators of City of Heroes and City of Villains
• Radical Entertainment of Vancouver, with titles such as Hulk, Scarface and Simpsons
• And freelancers who have worked on titles such as Myst III & IV, Homeworld II and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

With more than 7.5 million registered users, America's Army ranks among the top five online PC action games played worldwide. The developers say it's a game designed to provide civilians with an inside perspective and a virtual role in today's modern Army.

The America's Army visitors, which included Chambers, Phillip Bossant, Kathy Land and Matt Soares, spoke about the history of the game and their professional challenges and successes. "This started out as a public communications effort," Chambers said.

Ann DeMarle of Champlain College said that those in the "serious game" industry -- whether government, medical, corporate, education or science -- often admire the Army's game development work as a successful model of a "serious game." Serious games harness technology to enhance learning, training, marketing or to create positive change. In this case, the bottom-line goals of America's Army include public relations and recruiting.

DeMarle said Champlain students have been creating serious games -- one of which teaches youngsters about the dangers of mercury and another that reinforces historical facts about Alexander Hamilton. The students will be developing more serious games for clients, she said.
 

November 2006: Matt Harding of wherethehellismatt.com visits Champlain

On November 9, Matt Harding of wherethehellismatt.com visited Champlain College for his first-ever public speaking event.

Otherwise known as "the guy who's danced his way around the world" in videos on YouTube, Matt is a very accomplished e-Game designer and has created games for Microsoft X-Box. After deciding he needed more balance in his life, Matt went to experience the world first-hand while dancing in each place that he visited. He's danced in over 39 countries -- some in extreme locations such as in a lake full of jellyfish in the Pacific island nation of Palau and on a sandy dune in the Namibian desert. Matt urges US citizens to get out and travel and discover the world and its many diverse cultures.

Watch the video of Matt dancing with a crowd of Champlain students (YouTube.com).
 

October 2006: Martin Walker, CTO of A2M speaks at Champlain College

	Martin Walker of A2M in Montreal shares his industry knowledge with Champlain students.

Professional game developers fly from all corners of the continent to meet with Champlain’s Electronic Game Development students, who fire out questions about new video games, the industry and the developers’ jobs, while hanging on their every word.

Some of the studios represented have included EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Radical Entertainment, A2M and Cryptic Studios. Industry professionals from these and other companies make up the advisory committee for the new program.

Recently, Martin Walker, the chief technology officer at Montreal's A2M spoke on campus about the creative and production processes for games. A2M titles include Monster House, Scooby Doo, Kim Possible and Ice Age. "You should be proud of the program you have created," Walker said. "In my opinion it is the best game program I've seen so far. Your passion for your work will definitely create passionate students that will make a difference in the industry."
 

April 2006: Champlain Professor Receives First Perry Endowment

Champlain College faculty member Ann DeMarle recently became the first recipient of the Roger H. Perry Endowed Chair. The endowment, named for the College’s sixth president, who retired in 2005, was established to support initiatives promoting innovation, change and entrepreneurship at the College. DeMarle, former director of the Multimedia and Graphic Design and Electronic Game programs in the Communications and Creative Media division is using the endowment to create a new on-campus center dedicated to e-game development.

DeMarle’s work will take her away from teaching for roughly a year and occasionally away from campus as she directs her energies to core components of the e-gaming center mission, among them project-based learning, industry partnerships, academic exchanges, and the promotion of development of “serious games” -- or games with an educational or instructional purpose. Not content to ride a wave of e-gaming technology, DeMarle hopes the Center will allow the College to lead the way -- “to impact and help define future uses of game technologies and content creation,” as the e-gaming center mission statement reads. “It’s a way to show everybody that Champlain is really serious about this,” DeMarle says. “We want to be thought leaders in that space.”

Toward that end the Center will foster industry exchanges, create an e-gaming workspace, cultivate a skilled student workforce, develop faculty-directed projects and make contributions to the emerging field of e-gaming as a medium for delivering educational content.

In the Fall 2006 semester, roughly 90 incoming freshmen joined the e-gaming program, which includes two majors: electronic game programming and electronic game development. The program's popularity, while a boon both to the College and several outside clients who have collaborated with students on gaming projects, has also challenged DeMarle to find time to lead the program into a new phase. With the Perry chair, she can explore possibilities beyond campus.

In August, DeMarle visited Macedonia, where the creativity and entrepreneurial drive of Macedonia’s younger generation impressed her -- this despite the material deprivations lingering from the Soviet-era, state-sponsored manufacturing-based economy. “Like Vermonters,” she says, “they love their home country and wish to make it thrive.”

DeMarle is also creating e-gaming master’s degree and certificate programs as part of her work as the Perry chair.