Car sales, acting and the evolution of Fanshawe College courses

Go to college to learn how to sell cars and run a dealership? Yup. Ditto for screen and stage acting.

Saying it’s responding to employers’ demands, Fanshawe College is rolling out new courses in automotive sales and in acting – the newest offerings at the post-secondary school, which has campuses across Southwestern Ontario

“This has been in the works for three years and a lot of the employers mentioned there is a big need for salespeople and service and part advisers,” Carl Mendonca, associate dean at Fanshawe’s school of transportation technology and apprenticeship, said of the car sales and management programs.

Usually about 14 to 16 salespeople work in a car dealership, he said, and truck manufacturers and industries also employ them.

“There was a void, there was no real formal training other than a lot of folks learned on the job or from their peers,” he said. “As we know there is a huge labor shortage. We developed these two programs. . . to cater to the need that the employers challenged us to.”

Both the automotive sales and management programs are one-year post-graduate programs, Mendonca said.

Rob Carver is associate dean of the school of contemporary media. He said the acting for screen and stage program started in part because industry insiders urged the college to start training actors for film.

“It dips into everything that London is doing right now, all of the work on the economic development front to build up the cultural side. That includes music (and) filmmaking, and we have seen an explosion in the tech sector in animation and games,” Carver said.

The program is more practical than its previous incarnation because it prepares actors to work in more settings than just the stage, according to Romy Goulem, a professor in advanced filmmaking at Fanshawe.

“We looked at what actors do for a living and no actors make their full income off of the theatre,” he said. “Most acting programs are theatre-based programs, but actors make a living doing voice work for video games, animations, commercials, they do film and television.

“There are all sorts of skills outside of the theatre, especially with green screens and virtual sets and even just working on a film set, understanding the process,” he said.

On Saturday — for the first time since the pandemic began — Fanshawe will have its open house in-person, from 10 am to 2 pm at campuses in London, Simcoe, St. Thomas, Woodstock and Clinton.

“It’s the perfect opportunity for people to really experience Fanshawe,” said Anne Hamilton, acting manager of domestic student recruitment. “They’ll be able to explore our campuses, meet with members of our faculty (and) support services staff, and tour residences in London. It will be a chance to explore our labs and some of our newer programs.”

A panel of current students will be on hand to answer questions and share their experiences at Fanshawe, she said.

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