By Dylan Bradley and Victor Henderson/reporters
After more than a year of rebuilding, NE Campus’ instructional media building reopened for the first week of classes.
The NIMC building was written off as a 100 percent loss because of extensive smoke damage throughout as a result of a fire that broke out Dec. 8, 2012.
“Everything except the exterior bricks were gutted and replaced,” risk and insurance manager Michael Payton said.
Radio/TV/film assistant professor Jerry Zumwalt said the process of restoring the program has been long. Everything in the building had to be inventoried, cleaned and evaluated to see what could be returned and what had to be replaced.
“The things that are almost always completely unreliable after a fire is electronics,” he said.
The new building has features that benefit students, instructors and the environment, including a TriCaster, which allows projects to be done digitally.
“Students are going to be able to work with the latest technology,” he said.
NE RTVF student Will Shotwell said he began taking classes over the summer while the program was temporarily in portable buildings. He is glad to see the changes.
“I really like it so far,” he said. “I just now came over here and saw the new studio, and I’m really impressed with it. I can’t wait to see it all set up and ready to go.”
After the fire, classes were moved to the NMPC building, and the supportive departments that share the building with the RTVF program separated and moved in with various departments. Another student who was in the program before the fire said he is excited about the changes and upgrades.
“This new place looks awesome,” NE RTVF student Dolan Hammit said. “I’m thinking about retaking a class so I can use all the new equipment we’re getting.”
The other departments housed in NIMC before the fire, including graphic services and media services, are also happy to be back. During the renovations, media services coordinator Cedric Hights and his team were separated.
“We were put out in the warehouse in temporary offices,” he said. “We were a makeshift operation for a full year. Now we’re back together so the workflow is better.”
Evelyne Binz, graphic services coordinator, said she was grateful her temporary office space was still on campus.
“You can’t blame them,” she said. “They gave us a room they had. Everyone was really nice in the physical plant. We’re just happy to have daylight again.”
