Inside Western Carolina University's Center for Applied Technology is a network-quality production/post production facility. "To match what's in this building," says Don Connelly, director of broadcasting, "you'll have to go to New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, or Nashville."
Dr. Bruce Frazier, Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Commercial and Electronic Music at WCU, has been involved with the facility since its inception in 1998; it was he who recruited Connelly to collaborate on the design.
Pat Acheson (retired 2009) joined the pair in 2002 in the early stages of construction and build-out as the director of studio operations. Pat's background includes 28 years of network television operations experience at ABC, CBS, and NBC in New York.
But the facility is all about the students. To provide, in Frazier's words, "the very best learning experience," they chose to combine the studios, thus tripling the facility's functionality. If the recording studio needs more space, the crew can simply go across the hall to the TV studio and vice versa. Projects are mixed throughout the facility via shared computer servers and digital routing switches.
As a result, WCU will now "have students with broader skills, to enter the industry
at a higher level than students typically do," says Connelly. According to Acheson,
"Our students are working with some of the most advanced equipment that matches what
the big four networks in New York are working with."
Further adding to students' industry value, the Engineering and Technology Department has created an electronics minor so that communication and music students will not
only know how to operate the equipment but also how to diagnose and make field repairs.
In addition to plasma screens, digital video recorders, and advanced digital video editing, the facility features a Sony MVS 8000 video switcher, the device that allows a director to choose which signal--camera, graphics, or live remote--the viewer sees. This is the same switcher used to put Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and the other network television programs on the air.
Equally impressive is the facility's Solid State Logic C200 state-of-the-art digital recording console. Additional broadcast quality equipment by Avid, Pinnacle, Leitch and Tektronix provides students the professional environment needed to enhance their future careers.
The TV facility includes Sony field cameras, Arri remote light kits, and location sound recording equipment by Sennheiser, Zaxcom, and Sound Design.