Wichita State’s Media Resources Center turned 50 this year. Headquartered at the east end of Ablah Library, the MRC equips both faculty and students with a wide array of modern media that enhance the learning process. But this invaluable campus resource had less-than-impressive beginnings.
Back in 1953, William “Bill” Nelson accepted a teaching post in the University of Wichita’s English department and also attended summer graduate courses in New York City, where he frequented film screenings at the Museum of Modern Art. It was there that he developed a serious interest in foreign film.
Wichita, though, wasn’t exactly a hotbed for international cinema, and film, by and large, was considered a frivolity at the time. So when Nelson, wanting to raise awareness about films made outside of Hollywood, attempted to purchase two 35mm projectors from Fox Theaters in Wichita and Salina for $20,000, the university administration was less than eager to advance him the money. Nelson shelved his plans.
But he stirred up controversy again in 1956 when, after Fox Theaters donated $500 to the university, he purchased a television set. He was told to stow the contraption in a closet since other faculty had more pressing needs that could not be met.
It wasn’t that audiovisual aids didn’t yet have a place in higher education. Inroads for the Audio-Visual Aids Center had been made even before President Harry Corbin appointed four deans, two department heads and Nelson to a 1953 committee set up for the purpose of mapping out the development of the center, which opened that fall in the north basement of Morrison Hall in a room vacated by the engineering department.
With a remodeling budget of $800, the area eventually included a screening room with seating for 60 and a seminar room with seating for 25. There was also a listening room, reference room, a main office and an office for the coordinator. But the attitude of the time, Nelson remembers, was that students needed contact with professors, not filmstrips.
He admits that even he was reluctant to use the materials in the classroom: “I didn’t use many AV aids. In fact, I could argue that they were irrelevant. What the students needed was me sitting on the edge of the desk, lecturing and smoking a cigarette.”
At the time, notes Mike Wood, current executive director of the MRC, overhead and 16mm projectors were the main AV mediums. Used for training soldiers during World War II, educators quickly found purposes for them in the classroom.
Despite many departments owning such pieces of equipment, there was no central location for them at WU, so Nelson went about collecting projectors and moving them to the AVC. That move, along with a decision to relocate a slide collection from the art department (which then lacked proper storage and display facilities), proved unpopular. But, Wood adds, the moves were key in the preservation of both the slides and the projectors.
Nelson was instrumental in centralizing materials, but the burgeoning AVC still lacked someone who could tend to its needs fulltime — until 1956 with the arrival of the late Carol Holman ’35/50, then a professor in the College of Education. She stepped in as coordinator of Audio-Visual Education and remained on board until 1979. (The AVC became the MRC in 1976.)
In that time, the center underwent some of its most significant changes, including a 1964 relocation to the northwest corner of the Ablah Library basement. The facilities were up-to-date and expansive: Holman and staff had 4,000 square feet, which allowed for two viewing rooms, one large screening room with a projection booth, a conference room, a tape recording room, 10 individual listening booths, two listening rooms and a film production area at their disposal.
During the 1970s, Holman and the MRC saw the demand for AV aids grow exponentially. By 1974 Hubbard Hall alone had increased media service to auditorium classrooms by 130 percent. Several grants allowed for new equipment to be installed there and at other campus buildings.
Throughout the decade, television-related activities continued to climb, with perhaps the most significant rise following a 1977 decision by the City of Wichita that allowed for a cable franchise in the Air Capital. After the higher education channel was assigned to WSU, there was no more tucking television sets into the closet.
By 1981, two years after Holman left the MRC, WSU 13, which had paired with the Appalachian Community Service Network, reached 40,000 homes with 64 hours of weekly programming.
One challenge of operating WSU 13, Wood notes, is making sure it’s about more than pure education. “You have to make sure that it’s a watchable channel,” he says. To that end, those who tune in can catch programming from around the globe as well as The Research Channel and College Times, a station that Wood characterizes as a “cross between CNN and MTV.”
“We also do our own programming,” Wood says. “Over the years that’s consisted of documentaries and magazine shows.” This original programming serves as a way for students interested in broadcasting to gain hands-on production experience.
In 1982, the MRC delivered the first telecourse via WSU 13. Although the start was small, by 2002 telecourses were favored over satellite courses as a form of distance delivery, reaching a record 2,131 students for a total of 6,393 credit hours.
In addition to telecourses, Blackboard, an online software platform, has become a revolutionary education tool. The software allows instructors to, among other things, retrieve and grade papers electronically. In 2000, Blackboard became the authorware for the campus, based on an MRC recommendation to the University Technology Committee.
Within eight months of its adoption, 2,000 students were accessing Blackboard in 200 WSU courses. One year later, 430 courses were utilizing Blackboard with more than 6,000 students serviced.
Gains in digital media have meant that older materials have been cast aside. Media deemed obsolete (laser discs, reel-to-reel audio tape, 16mm film and others) were deleted from the archives in 2002, though materials relating to Wichita and Wichita State were transferred to WSU Libraries’ Special Collections.
The days of threading reels of film and smoking cigarettes in the classroom may well be over, but the media revolution has only just begun. And who knows what technologies the MRC will be handling in the next 50 years?
MRC TIMELINE
1953: WU’s Audio-Visual Center opens in the north basement area of Morrison Hall (University Library), in a room vacated by engineering.
1956: The AVC, through the person of William Nelson, purchases the university’s first TV. But it’s stowed away in a university closet!
1964: The AVC boasts new digs in the northwest corner of Ablah Library’s basement. With 4,000 square feet, AVC director Carol Holman and staff have plenty of room to operate.
1976: To better reflect its mission, the AVC undergoes a name-change and becomes the Media Resources Center.
1977: The City of Wichita approves a cable TV franchise — and Wichita State gets (official) dibs on operating the higher education access channel.
1981: WSU activates WSU 13, the university’s cable television channel. The following year, WSU 13 delivers its first telecourse, the grad-level Dealing in Discipline.
1996: Fifteen outreach courses are beamed to WSU’s five off-campus education centers, bridging the distance gap with interactive programming.
1997: Multimedia Cablevision purchases the cable systems in a number of suburban communities, extending WSU 13’s reach to 117,000 homes.
2000: The University Technology Committee endorses Blackboard for web-course use at WSU, providing net-savvy students and distance-learners added flexibility.
2002: Telecourses continue as the most popular form of distance delivery at WSU, where a record 2,131 students enroll in 6,393 credit hours.
MEDIA PROS
Todd Lachniet ’92 moved to Los Angeles in search of a career — and found one. He’s had his hand in a number of major film productions, including The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. His training ground? Working at the MRC shooting video and directing. One of his collegiate projects was collaborating on the documentary Coronado in Kansas. His experiences at the MRC, he says, “built a confidence in me that was essential to my move to L.A. and my pursuit of working in the film industry.”
Christi Young ’95, a Network News Service engineering and operations manager, cut her media-pro teeth as an undergrad production assistant at the MRC. “We were treated with respect and expected to work professionally,” she recalls. As an NNS manager, Young oversees the operations of a newsroom in New York as well as 10 regional offices. “I would not be where I am today without the MRC,” she says. “Hands-on experience was as important as my degree.”
“You can’t get ahead in this business by simply going to class and reading books,” says Svein Schwab ’94, who’s now a Fox News photographer. “You need to be where it's happening — in the field running around with the camera and in the editing room learning how to tell a story. At the MRC I got that experience.” Schwab travels the country covering national news — everything from the Elian Gonzalez custody battle to the havoc wrought by Hurricane Isabel.
— Jeremy Jaso
