UNC's Student Televison studio division draws criticism

Members of Student Television are concerned that the thousands of dollars they used to upgrade their space in the Student Union have gone to waste.

The Union’s board of directors voted last week to divide the 2,100-square-foot multipurpose room that STV frequently uses between the group and the Union’s marketing and design department.

STV spent more than $30,000 converting the room in to a functional studio in 2009, members said.

“The renovation basically cancels out all the investments that we’ve put into the space,” said Sydney Holt, STV’s station manager.

STV will be left with 35 percent of the usable studio space it had before.

Patrick Nichols, STV’s student station engineer, said the renovations will probably require the group to purchase a new lighting grid, rewire the audio wiring and readjust some of the studio’s lighting.

“It will probably cost even more to get the smaller space up and running again because it doesn’t have the existing infrastructure that the large space had,” Holt said.

But director of the Carolina Union Don Luse said the changes represent a step up for STV.

“We are giving them a better space for their exclusive use,” he said. “And the space is still the largest footprint of any student organization so far.”

After the 2009 investments, STV was granted exclusive priority in booking the room — though it was not permanently reserved for their use.

“The multipurpose room is a meeting room, first and foremost,” Luse said. “It always has been.”

The renovations to the multipurpose room became necessary after last year’s failure of the UCommons referendum left the marketing and design department without a permanent location. The department has occupied the Class of 2000 Lounge since the summer.

In a proposal to the board in its meeting last week, STV members requested a 1,295 square-foot section of the multipurpose room, which members said represented a compromise.

“It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be something that STV could handle with minimal change from what we have now.”

The board voted against STV’s counterproposal and will proceed with the renovation plans.

The new renovations will add more large meeting rooms to the east wing of the Union, Luse said.

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