Boston University dormitories could get hooked up to cable starting as early as September if a group of students and top administrators finds a way to make the idea work, Student Union President Carl Woog announced Tuesday.
Woog will join President ad interim Aram Chobanian and Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore in creating a committee to look at the issue, which has been discussed during Union Executive Board campaigns each of the past several years.
In an email, Chobanian said he is “planning to set up a committee that included students to examine the situation” with cable. Currently only two dormitories – Hamilton House and Danielson Hall – are hooked up to cable because they were formerly graduate student housing, Woog said.
Woog and Elmore will be accepting rsums from students interested in being on the committee, he said.
Woog, whose election slate “True 2” made cable a campaign promise last Spring, said installing cable on campus would be “great for the campus community.”
“This is the holy grail that we’ve been looking for,” he said. “The opportunity for cable on campus has been our mission since day one.”
Cable would allow administrators to communicate with students while also acting as way to air film and television students’ projects and student-produced documentaries, Woog said. Cable would also make it possible to broadcast lectures, promote distance learning and open up a larger audience for the campus radio station, WTBU, he said.
“We believe cable is not only an entertainment, but also a way to bring the campus together – a way of distributing information, a way of sharing the university’s dream,” he said.
Administrators will make the final call on the issue, he said. The Union will recommend students for the committee and act as a way for students and administrators to communicate with each other throughout the process, Woog said.
“The committee is being called for by President Chobanian,” Woog said. “The role for me to play is simply to recommend some people.”
Vice President of Residence Life Mike Myers said his committee has been researching how cable works at about 50 other schools nationwide, and the group will share that information with the committee when it is done with the project. The Residence Life Committee is looking specifically at schools like Emory University and New York University, which are similar to BU in environment and are examples of how cable could function at BU.
The Union committee is also looking at how student-run channels work at other colleges, Myers said.
Woog said he could not speculate on how many students or which administrators will be on the committee.
But Woog said he is pleased with the issue’s direction and progress.
“The number one thing that needs to happen with any major policy change as we are experiencing now is to get students and administrators talking on a regular basis,” he said.
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