Franklin Hall

As the countdown clock inches closer to the opening of Franklin Hall, JMC faculty, staff and students are frantically making last minute arrangements

The Franklin Hall construction coutdown clock on the JMC Web site has been reset four times over the past year because of unexpected problems, water issues in the basement, and debates over the IP phone system.

But the building is now on track for a Fall 2007 opening. It will be a tight timetable, though. The physical move probably won't take place until late July.

Too say the least, the pace is hectic.

Ellen Losh, JMC administrative clerk, is in charge of class assignments in Franklin. “There is so much space in Franklin Hall,” she said. “It was nice not to have to fight for classroom space in the building.”

Losh also said each room is equipped with wireless Internet, allowing each the ability to be used as a computer lab.

After summer sessions, plans call for JMC to no longer use the classrooms in Taylor Hall and Music and Speech. All classes have been scheduled in Franklin for fall semester.

Leaving one spot open

With one exception. MSP classroom, D305, still will be used. And, a few sections of Media Writing and Newswriting may still be scheduled in labs elsewhere on campus.

Lori Cantor, senior business manager for the Office of Student Media, is buying furniture for portions of the new building. “Working on Franklin Hall has been like a second full time job to me,” she said.

Cantor originally sent a furniture request list to be reviewed by JMC advisers in January. Since then, she has been working on refining the list in order to lower the total cost. Cantor already has cut more than $6,000 in furniture from her original list, and another $6,000 probably will have to be removed.

Cantor also worked on a funding plan for funding new technology in the student media areas. In the new converged newsroom, for example, that includes computers, computer monitors, printers, video cameras and video editing software.

Cantor has also been planning out the cost of a cutting-edge studio newsroom set to accommodate the new high definition (HDTV) broadcasting format that will be in use by the student-operated TV-2 news shows.

Campus showcase

For a time, Franklin will be the most advanced building, from a technology standpoint, on campus.

In addition to the wireless network in each room, the building will feature door locks and latches that use magnetic entry swipe cards to open. Photo lab manager Chuck Bluman, who is in charge of buying furniture, arranging the move, and coordinating the new lock system, says for every step forward, there's at least one backward.

Another feature will be VoIP phones, where voices are treated as data and turned into tiny packets of information that are sent over networks. As they arrive at the other end of the call, the data is turned back into audio.

Lots of Ethernet

Franklin Hall will also be wired with 65 miles of gigabit Ethernet, which means that network communications between computers will move quickly, at up to a gigabit of information per second, depending on the volume of traffic the system is experiencing.

A storage room houses bundles of yellow Category 5 cables, known as “Cat5” cables, which are covered, twisted copper wires used to carry information moving over the computer network, as well as the basic phone service.

Eventually, these hi-tech features will be installed in every building on campus.

Fall 2007 will act as a trial period to see how everything is working and how the building will operate, according to Jeff Fruit, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. After the bugs are all worked out, the grand opening will be Spring Semester 2008, he said.

Related:

The latest Franklin update

Moving to the new facility

Hi-Tech broadcast studio awaits

Taking JMC history with us

JMC Main News Page

So, what takes JMC's places in Taylor Hall & Music and Speech?

Nature abhors a vacuum.

So do universities strapped for space. So, other departments can't wait for JMC to vacate Taylor Hall and MSP.

In Taylor Hall, most of the first floor that was occupied by JMC will be taken over by the School of Communication Studies.

And in MSP, the School of Theatre and Dance is armed with a $6.5 million grant and about $5 million more from the state to renovate prime space left vacant when the RTV portion of JMC moves out.

"A big part of this is bringing dance over from the Gym Annex," John Crawford, Theatre director, said. There will be new dance studios either as part of the renovations or the new addition and new studios for acting classes.

The E. Turner Stump and Wright-Curtis theaters will be upgraded with new equipment for lighting and projection but will not look very much different than they do now. Crawford said "a new black-box theater space, which will be a space for student productions" will be added to the building.

This space offers a lot of flexibility because the seating can be put almost anywhere, and projections can be put on all of the walls, he said.

-by Kaitlyn Lionti