Midwestern State University TV Studio

The Department of Mass Communications wanted to build the best possible broadcast studio and production facility – a place where students would train on the same equipment used by professionals. It was important for the department to make progress on achieving its objectives because the program was consistently losing qualified prospects who recognized its technology infrastructure as substandard.  After all, the TV studio was formerly an art gallery in the fine arts building. The broadcasting lab had been a coat room. And the office for the campus newspaper was carved out of a space never intended for collaboration and quick decision making. Worse yet, the university required that all spaces be quickly convertible to classrooms when needed – precluding essential technology configurations.

After working with the university to find a suitable space, Alpha installed a live broadcast control room to be used as the primary production control environment for multi-camera video productions. It was arranged with a two-tier console layout by Eastboard Consoles, and operating position’s monitoring and control interfaces supported manual and MOS-automated productions. Alpha also installed six Avid Media Composer craft edit suites, a voice-over booth utilizing Pro Tools, a broadcast NLE lab with 23 Avid Media Composer-based edit systems, a newsroom with Ross Inception NRCS, a journalism lab with 22 Adobe-equipped iMacs, and a rack room where a Ross NGK routing system was installed. Rounding out the integration, an equipment storage and checkout room provided secure storage for actively used equipment. In addition, all common areas facilities were equipped with large Samsung HD displays, IPTV set-top boxes, digital signage, and collaboration-ready meeting room systems.

School of Mass Communications faculty and administrators had an immediate need – to upgrade their technology infrastructure. But they also had an overarching vision of becoming a center for hands-on experiential learning in a highly competitive sector and a fast-changing, technology-dependent field. This involved the creation of production facilities that not only wowed prospective students but met the needs of graduating ones. Today faculty, staff, students and alumni have a broadcast facility they can be proud of. More than that, Mass Communications majors at Midwestern State University have access to state-of-the-art equipment which not only makes their learning experience richer, but immeasurably more practical by enabling them to hit the ground running in a vast range of professional environments.