Spanish language channels added to campus television

At the end of the Fall semester, two Spanish channels were added to University Housing’s cable.

A student put a suggestion into SGA’s suggestion box asking to have Spanish language TV stations on campus. As a result, SGA president Zach Mullins, came to Executive Director of University Housing Larry Christenson and asked if it was possible.

For Christenson it makes sense to have Spanish language stations for several reasons.

“Number one, we do have a growing population of students whose primary language or second language is Spanish,” Christenson said. “And number two, we have a number of students who study foreign languages on our campus or (who are) international students. So I said ‘yes we should have it.’ I didn’t even think about it.”

Christenson contacted Executive Director of Auxiliary Services Kyle Cullars, who is in charge of the cable contract. This satellite cable company does not broadcast elsewhere in Milledgeville; it only comes to Georgia College.

Cullars checked on Spanish channel availability and University Housing decided to buy Univision, now Channel 89. This channel cost $1,875.60 per year and the cable company, with no additional cost, added a second Spanish language station, Galavision, now Channel 91. Telemundo was a more expensive option, costing $14,067 per year, and thus it was not purchased.

Language lab coordinator and Spanish instructor, Joshua Everett said he heard about the new Spanish language channels at the end of last semester.

“It is obviously a very good thing for students to have access to. The more natural speech that they can hear and native speakers in natural context is definitely going to improve their language skills much more,” Everett said.

Sophomore pre-nursing major, Janet Rodriguez lives in Sanford Hall and she got very excited when she saw Univision on TV because now she can watch her soap operas she said, specifically ‘Triunfo del amor.’ Rodriguez is originally from Mexico.

Non-Hispanic students also have discovered these new Spanish language channels.

“I just flipped through and of course I heard Spanish and was like ‘oh cool,’” said freshman, biology major, Will Kenimer. “So I went back and I watched for a little while and actually I could understand until they start speaking really, really fast.”

Some students do not know about these new channels.

“Actually I don’t really watch TV, I try to find it all online,” said freshman, pre-nursing major, Pharath Man.

One standard channel most universities have, but one that Georgia College is still lacking, is Scola. It has programs in several languages at different times of the day.

Scola is one of the channels offered at the University of Georgia, according to their website. They also have Russian, Chinese, French and German language stations.

Even though Georgia Tech does not have Scola in their TV channel guide, they have four other Spanish language stations, two Arabic, three Hindi, two Russian, one Mandarin, one French, one Cantonese, one Korean and one Japanese, according to their website.

If students request Scola, University Housing will be willing to get it, said Christenson.

“I want to offer services to our students who live in our halls that they want as long as they use them,” Christenson said.

Univision and Galavision are the two new Spanish-language stations now available at Georgia College.

“I’m happy that the university is embracing that and a little more multiculturalism,” Everett said.

Posted by Jessica Ramirez on Jan 27 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.