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The School
knows where it will move
this summer. We're just not sure of the
when.
First it was late May.
Then mid-June. Now, it's looking like late
July.
Maybe.
Chuck Bluman, photo lab
manager, is in charge of the move to Franklin
Hall and said the ideal date to move everything
out of Music and Speech and Taylor Hall
would have been early June.
But a number of variables,
such as construction deadlines, water problems
and building inspection, made that time
slot impossible. Now, the "move stuff
in" date looks like late July. The
"move people in" date could be
Aug. 1 or so.
Addition lagging behind
And that's just the renovated
part of the structure. The 20,000 square
foot addition probably won't be occupied
until the middle of fall semester.
The question of what
equipment and furniture to take to Franklin
has occupied a lot of time. If the school
moved every piece of furniture it owns,
it still wouldn't be enough to furnish
every room of Franklin, Bluman said. "And
it certainly is not worth moving mismatched
tables and chairs from the 1970s to a renovated
building," Bluman said.
JMC is definitely going
to move all furniture and equipment from
the Hirsch Lab in Music and Speech and
Taylor Hall computer labs 103, 120 and
131 to Franklin Hall, Bluman said.
In the meantime, Bluman,
staff and faculty have been looking through
office supply catalogues and checking out
furniture in buildings around campus. Orders
for furniture needed in Franklin are being
placed, JMC Director Jeff Fruit said.
Bluman said his biggest
concern is setting up the shipments of
new furniture that could be arriving close
to the time classes begin in the fall.
The contractors will provide people to
assemble the new furniture and Bluman said
he will be helping to decide where everything
should go.
Packing it in
He has also been in contact
with the university's receiving and distributing
department, which will be responsible for
packing, wrapping, lifting and moving everything
JMC owns -- except computers.
That responsibility is
left to Ben Marquis, IT user support analyst
for JMC. The university does not like to
move computers and servers because they
require special handling and must be packed
and padded so they don't bounce around
much, Marquis said.
He said he also suspects
the university does not want to be responsible
if data is lost during the move as a result
of hardware damage.
"I could probably strike
a deal with them to do some of it, but
I would rather handle it myself," Marquis
said. "I want to be certain that everything
is handled gently.
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"Also, many of the machines
that need to be moved contain data that
is considered to be sensitive. Because
of that, I would not want the machine,
at any point, to be out of my direct oversight."
Marquis will use his three
summer employees and hire some extra lifting
labor for the move. He estimated they would
move between 200 and 250 computers.
A truck will be rented
for the computers, and Marquis said he
will use his own car to move the servers.
Moving
student media
The Summer Kent Stater,
which will publish its first issue June
13, is the only student media publication
that will be operating at the time of the
move. Even if the move had gone as planned
during the first week in June, setting
up new and old computers and furniture
could have affected its deadlines, said
Lori Cantor, manager of student media.
"I don't see it being
pretty, I have no idea how that will work."
Cantor said. "The first ad deadline is
June 8, so even if we moved that first
week, it will still be running into Stater
deadlines."
Stater faculty
adviser Carl Schierhorn said he would like
to get half of the newsroom set up in Franklin
while keeping the other half in Taylor.
That way, they can work in Taylor until
the equipment in Franklin has been tested,
and then the paper can be produced from
the new facility.
Converged newsroom
The Stater and
other student media will be moving into
a new converged newsroom when the addition
to Franklin is complete. The plan is to
get all new furniture and computers for
the converged newsroom, Cantor said.
"It's going to be a showplace,"
she said. "The newsroom will be a central
feature of the building for people to come
in and tour."
That means the Stater's
existing furniture will be made available
to other student media publications like
The Burr and Black Squirrel
Radio, Cantor said.
"This is all very stressful
and exciting," she said. "Everyone is thrilled
to be in a new facility and under the same
roof, but just getting from here to there
has put a lot more work on everyone.
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