A&S and Russell get A/V repairs

The Arts and Sciences Auditorium and Russell Auditorium are undergoing equipment improvements and long overdue changes thanks to the voices of students and staff.

The problems were brought to the school’s attention early this summer when a costly projection screen ripped in the Arts & Sciences Auditorium and had to be replaced immediately. Later, water damage to wires was discovered as a result of a flooding problem. The sound system began to falter, and soon after, the lights failed to dim. Also, the technology in the auditoriums is old and needs to be updated.

On July 1, Chief Information Officer Dr. Jim Wolfgang and the entire Audio-Visual staff were pulled together and given the task of caring for the audio-visual equipment and its responsibilities. This includes the problems with the A&S auditoriums as well as the entire college. The equipment problems in the auditoriums have been developing over the years due to lack of maintenance, age of the equipment and faulty installation.

“Yes, we are working on the problems, and they will be fixed so that people will be proud of the equipment again,” said Wolfgang.

To meet everyone’s needs this semester, scheduled visits to the auditoriums are being made. This will allow everyone access to things like portable sound systems and projectors if they need them.

In the past, only one person took care of the audio-visual equipment and everything that came along with the job. Due to the short-handed staff, a lot of problems with equipment around the entire campus were created. This is where Wolfgang and his Audio-Visual team come into the picture. Since there was no budget set aside for this kind of problem, a simple yet expensive plan was created.

The first part of the plan is to revive the auditoriums to the status that they should be in now. The second part is to eventually bring them to the level of condition that everyone thinks they should be. Preventative maintenance is a big part of this plan. This means that once the equipment is fully operational, the Audio-Visual Staff will service and maintain the equipment on a regular basis so that the problems that are occurring now will not arise again.

This two-part plan is already in progress. The Audio-Visual Staff has discovered that a new controller was needed in the Arts & Sciences Auditorium. The controller will allow simple operations like dimming the lights. The parts have been ordered and will hopefully be installed in as soon as two weeks.

“We are working as quickly as possible to get things fixed,” said Dr. Bernie L. Patterson, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.

In addition to creating a new system, Brian Alliston has been hired to ensure that all the equipment is running properly at all times and to guarantee that all audio-visual requests are met.

“We hope that people are comfortable calling us with problems and knowing that we are there and willing to help,” assured Dr. Wolfgang. “Bottom line is we want to be proud of the work we’ve done, and we want the students to be proud, too.”

The auditorium is scheduled to be fully operational in 30 days.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 14 2001. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry