Hillsdale College plans to construct a new video studio beginning next year, according to Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé.
The studio will be built on the corner of Fayette and Union streets in part of the parking lot next to the Stanton Building for Classical Education and the Founders Gym.
The plans for the studio include additional space for teaching online courses and will serve as a lab for documentary filmmaking classes, according to Director of Visual Media Mark Waters. This is the first phase of a larger project. It will also include the construction of a connected building that will house marketing and media offices.
“This new studio will be critical to expanding our educational outreach, and several generous donors have already stepped up with lead gifts for the fundraising for this building,” Vice President of Marketing Bill Gray said.
Péwé said Chair of the Board of Trustees Pat Sajak gave the lead donor gift of $2.4 million — presently valued at $1.9 million. An anonymous donor gave a $1 million matching gift, leaving about $800,000 left to raise.
The donations will cover the studio and mezzanine loft.
The first step of the project is to submit an order for the “studio box,” a high-ceiling, heavily insulated concrete structure where the video team can film without interruptions, according to Péwé.
“The plan is to build a big-box studio where we can do classes and forum-style videos,” Péwé said.
Péwé said the college hopes to settle funding and order the concrete prefabrication for the project in the spring.
Currently, the visual media team uses the small studio in the basement of the Knorr Student Center for filming, Waters said.
“It’s limited in the amount of content you can put out because you have to change the space every time,” Waters said. “It takes a couple of days to recreate another set so that we can do something different there next.”
Gray said the Old Snack Bar is directly above the current studio, which makes recording difficult.
“I can remember filming an online course and having to run upstairs to halt a swing club practice because the sound of the students’ heels was being captured on the audio for the course,” Gray said.
Gray said the new studio will provide an easier and more comfortable place to work with faculty, Gray said.
“It will allow us to film video more efficiently, which could result in an increase in the number of videos produced,” Gray said.
The visual media department often has to go to other places on campus to record when there is not enough space, Waters said.
“Instead of going into the Heritage Room, we could recreate that in a studio so that you can shoot an interview without disrupting college life, which is always our goal,” he said.
Once the college receives additional funding, the work will begin on the second part of the project: accommodating an increasing number of marketing and media personnel who moved to the Stanton Building from Moss Hall. With the radio station and the podcast team planning to move to Stanton, it will further limit the office space there.
“They are crammed in one spot,” Péwé said. “In the long term, it would be really helpful to have more office space down there.”
While the college usually waits to get full funding for projects, the board of trustees decided to continue to fundraise for the $7.8 million needed for the entire project.
Waters said the ultimate goal of the larger studio is to further the college’s mission.
“It’s less about being able to have walls that look like the Heritage Room,” Waters said. “It is more about the desire to teach more people.”