Associated Student Government senators will vote tonight on a bill calling for the creation of a student-run broadcast station on NUTV’s currently unused channel one.
Student broadcasters said they are excited about the possibility of being broadcast on NUTV.
“It’s about time,” said Nikole Muzzy, news director for the Northwestern News Network, a student TV news organization.
Many students on campus are unable to view NNN’s 30-minute broadcasts because they currently are not aired on NUTV.
“We have our Web site, but it’s not the same as coming out on TV,” said Muzzy, a Medill senior. Having a student-run channel would “get our name out, which has been difficult,” she said.
Ivan Meyers, broadcast production manager for Medill, oversees newscasts out of McCormick Tribune Center, including those for NNN.
He said a student-run TV channel is long overdue.
“It didn’t make sense to me that at a school that has a great journalism program, theatre program and film program, the students didn’t have an outlet to show their work,” Meyers said. “There’s a lot of great work that students do that could fill this channel.”
When Northwestern created NUTV, the university initially reserved channel one for emergencies, said Joe Angotti, chairman of the broadcast program at the Medill School of Journalism.
People have been talking about starting a student-run channel for years, but no one has stepped forward to organize it or foot the bill, Meyers said.
The Office of Student Affairs is now working with ASG to create the channel.
ASG also is set to vote on a proposal to cancel classes for a full day on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Tracy Carson, president of For Members Only, said NU currently treats MLK Day as a “half-day holiday.”
Carson, a Weinberg senior, said most universities in the College of Further and Higher Education Group, a group that includes NU and several of its peer universities, cancel classes for a full day in honor of the federal holiday.
The senate also will hear a bill calling for Information Technology to include WildCARD photographs of undergraduate students in the Ph system.
According to Gabe Matlin, a McCormick senior and senator for Phi Mu Alpha and Sigma Alpha Iota, students would be able to choose to make their photographs available.
The option would allow students to find other students through the Ph system more easily, he said.
Tonight’s meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Northwestern rooms at Norris University Center. It is open to the campus community.
