Bob Bassett

Bob Bassett was hired as the first professor of film at a small college in Orange, California, in 1981. Over the next four decades, he developed graduate and undergraduate degree programs, raised over $70M to build a film school complex including on-campus sound stages, developed partnerships with film schools around the world, and created a Filmmaker-in-Residence program that brought major Hollywood filmmakers to campus each week. Top graduates include the Duffer Brothers, who created Stranger Things. Major Hollywood players such as Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos joined his advisory board. As founding dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, his leadership saw what began as a small collection of classes become the Chapman University film school, now ranked 4th in the nation.