NET gives new classroom a big boost
By Noel Judd
J Alumni News Staff
The new third-floor television studio in Harold and Marian Andersen Hall is a mix of old and new equipment in a new space.
For the past 30 years, advanced broadcasting courses had been taught in studios at Nebraska Educational Television. A combination of a new building for the College of Journalism and Mass Communications and a remodeling at NET gave the college the opportunity and the push to create an additional studio of its own for teaching advanced classes this fall, Renaud said.
NET had told the college that the studio it had been using for instruction was going to be eliminated in a major remodeling project. The spring of 2002, NET said, would be the last time the college would be able to use the facilities. "So we really only had about two-and-a-half months to build the studio, which isn't a lot of time," Renaud said.
NET may have been eliminating the studio space, but that doesn't mean they stopped supporting the college, Renaud said. Much of the equipment in the new Andersen Hall studio is from the old NET studio.
"I don't think we would have had the money for the studio if NET hadn't decided to donate gear," Renaud said. He said the donated equipment, about 40 percent of what is in the studio, included all of the studio cameras and backgrounds, many of the monitors and other equipment.
The first Broadcasting 226 class meetings this fall were a mix of new students and new equipment getting organized and in place said Tom Spann, associate professor of broadcasting. At the very beginning, students had to improvise in response to what - and wasn't - was available.
"Good evening, I'm Brooke, and there is nothing on TV," said junior broadcasting and advertising major Brooke Brestel on her first attempt at reading the teleprompter this fall.
Despite nervousness and technical problems during her first practice reading Brestel said she liked the new facility. She said most universities don't have equipment as good as that in the new studio. "It's a great opportunity," she said.
Renaud said the studio would eventually be used for many projects including classes, workshops and possibly even distance education courses. Public relations classes, more television and broadcasting writing classes and potential training of print journalism students for convergence news projects were all possibilities, Renaud said.
"I think we have some grand plans for it," Renaud said.
Spann, who teaches classes in the studio this semester, said that while he thought students benefited from being around professionals at NET, the easier accessibility of the new studio was a big benefit for both the students and himself.
The old studio at NET was open 12:30-5:30 p.m. At Andersen, students have more times they can work and learn, Spann said. He also said that the being in the same building as the advanced studio made it easier for him to monitor student work.
Spann said the uncertainties of the new studio wouldn't keep students from learning the basics of script writing and running newscasts.
It's that emphasis on the basics that has made UNL's program successful, he said. "That's the ultimate test: to leave here and go in the industry and fit in quickly."
