Hands-on Learning
Donovan Media Development Center, located in Elliot & Rosel Schewel Hall, was established with a series of grants from the Donovan Foundation. A primary purpose of the Donovan Media Development Center is to give students the opportunity to create work for actual clients. Another purpose is to provide media services to non-profit agencies in the Central Virginia area. These services include designing logos, stationary, business cards, CD labels, posters, brochures, and newsletters to give them a professional look. Other services include producing videos for building public awareness and fundraising and creating sophisticated Power Points for delivering presentations to community groups.
The Donovan Media Development Center’s facilities include two desktop publishing laboratories, one with Macs and the other with PCs. They give students the ability to produce very high quality print graphics and video composites. The Center also has a professional television studio and control room, a media graphics room with two high-powered media work stations and five video editing suites. One of the editing suites is large enough to host clients for whom the Center is doing media work. The Center also includes an audio recording studio suitable for recording musical performances.
The Donovan Media Development Center has already produced projects for more than forty non-profit organizations. Students who work in the Center are able to create portfolios of their work for clients that will help them when they begin looking for jobs in the fields of communication and the graphic arts.
The Audio Recording Studio in the Donovan Media Development Center. A large performance space for musicians, a control room, and an isolation booth for voice-overs make up the recording studio. Sound is recorded to a mixer linked to a computer with audio editing and mixing software. Students can create CDs or audio for video programs.
The Television Studio and Control Room in the Donovan Media Development Center. Students produce television programs for the campus cable system. These may be talk shows, news shows, or entertainment programs created by the students. Students get experience that prepares them for careers in the television industry.
The Master Edit Suite in the Donovan Media Development Center. Equipment includes an AVID Media Composer workstation. AVID is the industry standard for high level video post-production. The client desk in the rear of the suite allows clients to observe students and faculty as they create media projects and to make suggestions. There are four smaller edit suites where students can work on their own.