Spring Break
Budget constraints impose limits on multimedia studio
Daniel Bott
Issue date: 11/2/06 Section: News
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The manager of Kent State's Student Multimedia Services Studio said budget restrictions are reducing the effectiveness of the studio.
For seven years Gary Mote has been developing the studio to the point where universities from across the country, including local universities such as the University of Akron and Cleveland State, have visited it to use what Kent State has as a model.
He said the student budget, which is the money allocated to paying students who work in the studio, is $3,000 less than what it needs to be. The Library and Media Services Council currently allocates about $12,000 for student wages for the studio. Mote said that $12,000 is bearable, $15,000 is preferable, while $16,000 is ideal.
He said the studio can't afford to have a student working for each hour that it is open. Mote said the studio can only have one student out of its five employees work each day. He and CourTney Collins, assistant manger and Kent State graduate, cover the hours that students can't.
"It would be nice to have additional help," Collins said, "not necessarily all the time, but during finals week, during peak times during the semester where we do get very full and very busy. That way, if there is extra help here, we can help students get through their projects quicker and have more students come in."
Mote said the last five weeks of a semester are particularly busy. During these times, having two students working in the studio would be ideal. This would require the current student budget to be increased by $4,000.
"At times we don't have enough work stations," Mote said. "We are sometimes three to five people deep."
Freshman advertising major Tony Detamore said he uses the studio mainly for recording and video editing.
He said he thought the studio was very useful because although he knew how to use many of the programs, there are plenty who would not.
"Most people couldn't just open up Adobe and figure out how to use it," he said.
The number of students coming into the studio is rising as well as the number of courses requiring multimedia skills.
"There are 19 in-class seminars for 471 students this year," Mote said. "There were six in 2004."
He said there were 91 courses in spring 2006 that had a digital video requirement, which was an increase from the 65 courses that did this in spring 2005.
Mote holds regular seminars and organizes workshops for both faculty and students. He said faculty's expectation of student's multimedia capabilities is too high and that students "are freaking out" when they come into the studio.
"Lecturers overestimate what students know," he said, "I have to call faculty and tell them, 'Do you know your students are freaking out? Do you know what you're doing is one of the hardest things?'"
Collins said while some students met the perceived expectation from faculty, many did not.
"There are always students who know all kinds of stuff about computers and don't need help," she said, "but there are also quite a lot of students who don't know anything about computers and are almost intimidated by computers, and I think there's a lot more of these people than some professors realize."
Contact technology and information services reporter Daniel Bott at dbott@kent.edu.
For seven years Gary Mote has been developing the studio to the point where universities from across the country, including local universities such as the University of Akron and Cleveland State, have visited it to use what Kent State has as a model.
He said the student budget, which is the money allocated to paying students who work in the studio, is $3,000 less than what it needs to be. The Library and Media Services Council currently allocates about $12,000 for student wages for the studio. Mote said that $12,000 is bearable, $15,000 is preferable, while $16,000 is ideal.
He said the studio can't afford to have a student working for each hour that it is open. Mote said the studio can only have one student out of its five employees work each day. He and CourTney Collins, assistant manger and Kent State graduate, cover the hours that students can't.
"It would be nice to have additional help," Collins said, "not necessarily all the time, but during finals week, during peak times during the semester where we do get very full and very busy. That way, if there is extra help here, we can help students get through their projects quicker and have more students come in."
Mote said the last five weeks of a semester are particularly busy. During these times, having two students working in the studio would be ideal. This would require the current student budget to be increased by $4,000.
"At times we don't have enough work stations," Mote said. "We are sometimes three to five people deep."
Freshman advertising major Tony Detamore said he uses the studio mainly for recording and video editing.
He said he thought the studio was very useful because although he knew how to use many of the programs, there are plenty who would not.
"Most people couldn't just open up Adobe and figure out how to use it," he said.
The number of students coming into the studio is rising as well as the number of courses requiring multimedia skills.
"There are 19 in-class seminars for 471 students this year," Mote said. "There were six in 2004."
He said there were 91 courses in spring 2006 that had a digital video requirement, which was an increase from the 65 courses that did this in spring 2005.
Mote holds regular seminars and organizes workshops for both faculty and students. He said faculty's expectation of student's multimedia capabilities is too high and that students "are freaking out" when they come into the studio.
"Lecturers overestimate what students know," he said, "I have to call faculty and tell them, 'Do you know your students are freaking out? Do you know what you're doing is one of the hardest things?'"
Collins said while some students met the perceived expectation from faculty, many did not.
"There are always students who know all kinds of stuff about computers and don't need help," she said, "but there are also quite a lot of students who don't know anything about computers and are almost intimidated by computers, and I think there's a lot more of these people than some professors realize."
Contact technology and information services reporter Daniel Bott at dbott@kent.edu.
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