By Rachael BeatonSPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
School of Communication students may see their course fees rise in the coming semesters as a result of improvements that are being made to the facility’s equipment.
Communication course fees are under scrutiny as the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication converts from an analog television system to a completely digital system in 2015.
“This change was needed... and continues to be necessary for the future,” Hofstra senior Tim Lin said. “As television majors we need to evolve with the ever-changing medium.”
The Herbert School is installing a new digital router to replace the analog router, a new digital ingest and playback system and updating the studio cameras from standard definition to high definition.
“As an administrator you never like to raise the cost, but on the other hand it seems to be an element of fairness involved here and asking the people who are really getting to use the very expensive equipment to take on a little bit more of that cost,” Dean Evan Cornog, Lawrence Herbert School of Communication said. The course fees have already risen slightly but, before this had not been raised in the last 10 years.
This is the third year of the conversion and the video engineering staff is finishing the router, a core piece of equipment that allows the audio and video signals to move around the building, costing about $250,000. The new router will be installed this summer and should be completed and in use for communication students within the 2015-2016 academic year.
The difference between an analog system and a digital system is that all devices will be recording directly to digital chips and digital computer files, rather than converting tape and natural sound frequencies into digital files. This eliminates the converting process and the loss of quality in video and audio signals.
“The big difference for me between analog and digital… is the quality,” said Douglas Morrow, an associate professor in the radio, television, and film department. “When you’re working with digital images you’re just working with a very high quality that doesn’t degrade... the digital quality means much more condensed.”
Hofstra is finally concluding the renovation. It has taken time because of the cost of transforming a larger facility from analog to digital compared to smaller schools that have already made the change on a minor scale.
“Being able to use equipment that the industry is using, or putting into their own news rooms, is going to help students be better interns, and better entry level employees,” said Melissa Connolly, vice president of University Relations. “They’re going to be better prepared; they’re going to understand the equipment and be ready to contribute from day one when they get in the workforce.”
The video engineering staff is currently waiting on an approval of the President’s budget for funding this year.
“The things we are talking about now are in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars, so the dean will go to the President’s office and say we need to make capital improvements, which is all part of a five-year planning process,” said Timothy Fehmel, facilities manager at the School of Communication and video engineering staff member. “We budget everything out so when it gets into money that big, we go for a special allocation from the President’s office.”
Additional funds are also coming from alumnus Lawrence Herbert, the CEO of Pantone, Inc., who donated money to the school last year. In accordance with his donation, he demanded general renovations to the walls, lights and floors in addition to the digital change before he would put his name on the building.
“It’s going to be much better for students to learn in an environment that’s going to be exactly like what they are going to encounter when they go out into the work force,” Fehmel said.