SCA Welcomes Four New Division Chairs
by Ryan Gilmour
In 2024, four of SCA’s seven divisions welcomed new Division Chairs to guide the faculty, mentor the student body, and steer the School of Cinematic Arts into the future. The new Division Chairs are familiar faces in the halls of SCA and will bring years of experience as artists, executives, scholars, researchers, and educators to their new position.
SUSAN ARNOLD
Chair of the Film & Television Production Division
“As Chair, I really want to help students find their original voice and be able to create stories that resonate with them and resonate with the world. My favorite part of teaching young people is sharing the wisdom and knowledge I’ve gained over decades in the film business. Watching students become resilient and creative is really an honor.”
Susan Arnold is an accomplished producer who joined the USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty in 2016. In 2019 she became Vice Chair of the Film & Television Production Division; and in 2024 she assumed the position of Chair of the division. Before coming
to USC, Susan produced 13 Going On 30 starring Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo, America’s Sweetheart starring Julia Roberts, Forces of Nature starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck as well as the celebrated black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank starring John Cusack. Partnered with Judd Apatow she produced Drillbit Taylor starring Owen Wilson. Her other produced credits include, The Haunting starring Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta Jones, Lily Taylor and Owen Wilson and the critically acclaimed Unstrung Heroes directed by Diane Keaton. Susan’s producing debut was the offbeat comedy Benny and Joon starring Johnny Depp. Susan came to producing following a successful career as a Casting Director working independently and as a studio executive. She began her casting career working for Roger Corman on Piranha followed by Paramount’s hit movie Airplane. It was at Paramount where she met the celebrated Casting Executive Marion Dougherty, who recruited Susan to join her as an Executive at Warner Brothers.
KARA KEELING
Chair of the Division of Cinema & Media Studies
“As chair, I want to continue to grow the opportunities for students to get to know each other and the faculty. I want to encourage everyone to work together in a collaborative spirit. My favorite part of teaching is watching the ways the students bring their own curiosity and experience to the classroom.”
Kara Keeling’s most recent monograph, Queer Times, Black Futures, was published in 2019 by New York University Press. It considers the promises and pitfalls of imagination, technology, futurity, and liberation as they have persisted in and through racial capitalism by exploring how the speculative fictions of cinema, music, and literature that center black existence provide scenarios wherein we might imagine alternative worlds, queer and otherwise. Keeling’s first book, The Witch’s Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense (Duke University Press, 2007), explores the role of cinematic images in the construction and maintenance of hegemonic conceptions of the world and interrogates the complex relationships between cinematic visibility, minority politics, and the labor required to create and maintain alternative organizations of social life. Keeling is co-editor (with Josh Kun) of Sound Clash: Listening to American Studies, a collection of writings about sound and American Studies and (with Colin MacCabe and Cornel West) of a selection of writings by the late James A. Snead entitled European Pedigrees/ African Contagions: Racist Traces and Other Writing. Keeling’s essays have appeared in the journals GLQ, The Black Scholar, Women and Performance, and elsewhere.
MARY SWEENEY
Chair of the John Wells Division of Writing for Film & Television
“As Chair, I’m going to make sure the Writing Division focuses on story. The media is going to continue to change. It’s been changing at warp speed but the story is still at the core at everything we do. I enjoy watching young artists come into their own and move on into the world.”
Award winning filmmaker Mary Sweeney teaches Graduate Feature Screenwriting Thesis, “Dreams, the Brain and Storytelling”, and “Myth and Metaphors”. She was a key collaborator with David Lynch as his producer, writer and editor for twenty years. She edited Twin Peaks TV, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Hotel Room, Lost Highway, The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive, for which she was awarded the 2001 British Academy Award for Best Editing. Sweeney wrote, produced and edited The Straight Story earning Richard Farnsworth an Academy Award nomination. Her producing credits include Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, Nadja, and Baraboo, her directorial debut based on her original screenplay. She was a Consulting Producer for Matthew Weiner’s series The Romanoffs, and writer of episode three, House of Special Purpose. Sweeney is the co-host of the podcast FLOAT where she explores the creative place where art and science meet with USC Dornsife’s Professor, Jonas Kaplan. Sweeney is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was a co-founder and Board Vice President of Desert X Art Biennial in the Coachella Valley. Sweeney is a Film Expert for the American Film Showcase and Global Media Makers State Department grant programs, as well as a Fulbright Specialist.
NICOLE WEST
Chair of the John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts
“I’m very excited to take on the role as Chair. It's giving me the opportunity to craft future creators. I love the idea of being able to influence and help them figure out how to pursue their path and set them up for success in a changing world.”
Nic (Nicole) West is an experienced entertainment professional with a passion for curating and developing inspired teams to create quality content. She is the Co-Founder and Head of Operations at West Studio. Her professional path has led her to a career in creative production and studio management in a myriad of entertainment industries, including: Television Animation, Feature Animation and Video Games. She has worked with DreamWorks Television Animation and Feature Animation, Electronic Arts, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, Babel Media and Brash Entertainment. Nic volunteers as an Advisory Council Member for the BRIC Foundation, an organization focused on increasing representation in Entertainment, Gaming, Media and Tech. In 2012 she developed the concept and co-curated Painting in Pixels: An Exhibition of Concept Art at the Riverside Art Museum. The exhibition educated the general public about the purpose and role of concept art within the entertainment industries and featured over 40 Concept Artists across live action, animation and video games. Nic was integral in the strategic planning of the Into the Pixel exhibit from 2004 to 2007. Into the Pixel was an exhibit at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) that brought together experts from the traditional fine art world and the interactive entertainment industry to display and discuss the art of video games.