Changes are in store for some of the student media groups on campus as The Pendulum, WSOE, Live Oak Communications and Phi Psi Cli prepare to move from their current locations in Moseley Center to Williamson Avenue.

The new Pendulum office in the old Fidelity Bank building beside Acorn is nearing completion. WSOE and Phi Psi Cli are tentatively scheduled to move into a building currently used by technology staff in January or February 2008.

The first floor of that building will house WSOE while Phi Psi Cli will share the second floor with Live Oak Communications, a student PR agency that operates out of the School of Communications. The other campus media organizations are run through the Student Media Board.

Paul Parsons, dean of the School of Communications, thinks that having The Pendulum, WSOE, Phi Psi Cli and ESTV in a central location will benefit all of the media groups.

“It gives student media a lot more visibility,” he said.

Parsons also hopes that the closer location will open up the possibility of working together more closely, creating a feeling of synergy among the media groups.

“We want this to pull us together into a sphere of connectedness,” he said.

The change in location is meant to provide the student media staff with new opportunities and to encourage the involvement of the entire student community. The new facilities will allow for the production of sharper and higher-quality media material.

Part of the motivation behind this move is to better prepare students for what life will be like in the media world after graduation.

“We want to encourage and hasten convergence efforts among campus media groups,” said Colin Donohue, coordinator of student media.

The media organizations are encouraged to combine their skills to create a professional quality product. The goal is that The Pendulum, WSOE and Phoenix 14 News will work together more closely to cover news and events. There is also the possibility of establishing a pool of photographers from Phi Psi Cli that The Pendulum and Phoenix 14 could pull from.

The vault in the old bank building that houses The Pendulum will be equipped with audio and video equipment and editing software. The Pendulum Web site will soon be updated more frequently and will feature podcasts. The vault will also have a camera, providing another possible place for Phoenix 14 to film stories and interviews.

Donohue and J. McMerty, coordinator of video projects, are working to form convergence teams, which would use people from different concentrations to make a media package. This would combine print, video and still photos and could be run on ESTV, in The Pendulum or on The Pendulum’s Web site.

“We want to create a cross-platform product,” Donohue said. “Everyone has a specialty but they should have competency in other areas as well.”

Reporter: Alexa Milan - 09/19/07