Writing Internship Honors Rod Serling

Thanks to the efforts of Harvey Z. Warren ’73, a member of the Writers Guild Foundation in Los Angeles and former student of the late Rod Serling, a new internship has been established to honor Serling. The internship is open to juniors and seniors from the Roy H. Park School of Communications who have been accepted into the Ithaca College Los Angeles program.

In September, at a Los Angeles reception honoring Emmy nominees, the Writers Guild of America presented Ithaca College with the Rod Serling Writing Internship. Serling, who taught Warren and other students at Ithaca College during the 1970s, is well known as the creator and host of the TV classic The Twilight Zone and as an Emmy-winning dramatist in the "golden age" of television. Warren, the foundation’s chief of media relations communications, says, "Rod Serling was the first professor to instill an interest in writing in me. When I asked the guild to consider a scholarship in Rod’s name, they thought it was a great idea. It’s a great opportunity for IC, as this is a direct link to the Writers Guild and the West Coast."

Warren awarded the first Serling writing internship to Eric Bennett ’00, a cinema and photography major from Westboro, Massachusetts, who is currently attending the L.A. program and interning with the hit comedy Frasier. "I watched Twilight Zone as a child," says Bennett. "It would have been great to have had Serling as a professor. I am so grateful for this award and for the recognition. Being in Los Angeles has been incredible."