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| Key players in the development of the new Multimedia Center, from left to right: Serin Anderson, Scot Harrison, Dr. Irina Gendelman, and Philip Cheek. |
As the planning team looked at other schools in the area with learning commons, they also saw that several have similar media creation labs. Harrison noted that they were particularly drawn to similar spaces at Seattle University and Pierce College.
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| Fr. Peter Tynan, O.S.B. tries out the new 84-inch SMART Board |
Dr. Irina Gendelman, director of the new Communication Studies program at Saint Martin's University, is especially pleased to help students follow the advice of musician and community organizer Jello Biafra, who is famous for telling people to stop complaining about the media and "become the media." Dr. Gendelman looking forward to using the space for instruction. "One of the things I was interested in," she said, "was having access to the technology for teaching production classes."
The previous iteration of the Multimedia Center was not sufficient for production on the scale Dr. Gendelman had hoped for. The workstations were not powerful enough to run the editing software and booted slowly, causing many students to become frustrated.
With Dr. Gendelman's interest in podcasting and the interest of incoming faculty member, Dr. Sonia De La Cruz, in documentary film and filmmaking, this space should see extensive use. In fact, Dr. Gendelman's course on podcasting and a digital video course have already used it.
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| Dr. Irina Gendelman shares student-produced podcasts and videos during the open house. |
Harrison said the upgraded space was paid for by the library's building endowment. "Part of that endowment is to upgrade, keep the building in like-new condition," he said. Another part of the endowment is for technology improvements, the new Multimedia Center fits in with both aspects of the endowment.
