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Department of Communication

They appeared like winter catalogs mailed when the days are still warm. Unexpected and seemingly useless at first glance, but important at a later date.

CampusVision flatscreen TVs appeared in Rhodes Tower and University Center Sept. 26, and some students, faculty and staff at Cleveland State Uni-versity reacted the same.

Some people may have walked by too quickly to notice that, although containing ads, they also provide messages.

“The goal is to make it a communication tool for our students,” said Brian Johnston, director of marketing and public affairs at CSU.

Johnston explained that Sadge Media approached the university with the proposal to provide screens at “no cost.” The screens show five minutes of their advertisements, approved by the university before runnning, along with two minutes of university announcements in a seven-minute loop. The loop is changed about once a week.

“It’s our time to use,” said Johnston. “The messages we put up should have wide university application.”

Calvin Knight, an audiovisual technician for Instructional Media Services, a CSU staff member for 23 years pondered the origin of these screens.

Knight said in an e-mail to the Stater office, “It (the screen) shows the same glorification of war (military recruitment ads) over and over with a few movie trailers. I have asked around and no one I asked knows where it came from.”

In a collegiate environ-ment such as CSU passersby seem to be hoping these new additions have academic substance.

“The monitor in the lobby of RT is broken or just not set up right. It is magenta and the color is poor,” Knight said. “The short loop of advertising is irritating and rather pointless.”

Johnston said that the university should make a profit in the future by having the screens. All revenue will go into the general university oper-ating budget, less than $10,000 a year, and may possibly be seen in February or March. It is difficult to estimate an amount because there are many variables.

Knight updated his comment recently and said that the screens now seem to have useful campus information.

Sadge Media is a company based out of Cincinnati, and have distributed screens to colleges in Ohio, including Bowling Green State University and the Un-iversity of Cincinnati; across the country including, Duke University and Northern Illinois University.

According to Johnston the university plans to wait about six months to weigh the acceptance of the new screens, but they think that they will prove to be successful at CSU.

“Right now anything is possible,” said Johnston. “We have a great relationship with the company.”

In the future CSU may negotiate with Sadge Media for more time and screens to be placed around campus allowing more communication expansion.

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