I've been pushing for more scholarship on comedy for years (including my own on The Three Stooges). I like this statement:
“Comedy is more relevant than ever,” said Martie Cook, professor and associate chair of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson and the creator of the Comedic Arts major. “For Millennials and Generation Z, it’s a second language for expressing and reflecting the world as they understand it. We're thrilled to meet the next generation’s growing demand for all things comedy. . ."

But the term "Generation Z" is new to me--are we really referring to current students as zombies?

Heh - I don't think I'd heard of "Generation Z" either! What an unfortunate label.

As for scholarship on comedy - I hear you. I wrote a dissertation on Shakespeare's comedies, and trying to get other people to understand why I was doing such a thing was difficult; getting them to see what I wanted to do was often impossible. (People kept telling me I needed to write about Ben Jonson and satire, for example, because if something was true of Shakespeare's comedies, it needed to be true of all Renaissance comedies - since they're all "funny" - even though that is like saying that the rules that govern When Harry Met Sally should also apply to The Daily Show.)