On Campus
iTV Studio uses technology and expertise to broadcast Rutgers' voices over the airwaves
Several of the studio’s projects have garnered awards. A video produced for Johnson & Johnson about the late pioneer and scholar Mary Starke Harper, who reformed the way federally funded research could be conducted on humans, won several awards in 2006, including a Gold Aurora Award, a bronze Telly Award, and a DV Award.
Recent Rutgers projects include a video for the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, which commemorated the center’s 10th anniversary; and videotaping “The Governor’s Project” for the Eagleton Institute of Politics.
The studio is finishing a video for the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center, a university-based program that provides services to children and adults with autism and their families. “Our overview film, about six years old, had become outdated,” said Jan Handleman, the center’s director. “We needed something fresh for families interested in sending their children here.”
Handleman and the center’s executive director, Sandra Harris, worked with an iTV producer and technicians who helped script the half-hour documentary, videotaped clients in several locations, and edited the footage.
“Filming educational interventions with children and adults with autism spectrum disorders requires discretion,” Handleman said. One sequence, he said, involved a work program at Longhorn Steakhouse in North Brunswick. “The segment was to show a supportive work situation for adults with autism who require continuing vocational and life skills support. I was very impressed with iTV Studio’s professionalism and sensitivity.”
Studio staff members are also producing a video for the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, as well as a retrospective on the College of Nursing.
Ray Caprio, vice president of the Division of Continuous Education and Outreach, said the division assumed responsibility for iTV Studio in 2004 with the challenge “to develop a long-term business model that made sense in a difficult budget climate.” He said that the studio’s expertise dovetailed with the division’s mission to serve the lifelong learning needs of New Jersey citizens.
“Technology creates flexible, high-caliber learning opportunities,” Caprio said. iTV Studio staff members not only provide professional broadcast facilities but also promote and support instruction at Rutgers. Services include videotaping of lectures, conferences, and special events; support for videoconferencing; CDs that contain highlights of research projects and reports; and videos of guest lecturers on campuses that can be delivered over the internet.
“Basically, we can provide any kind of video service in any format that faculty or staff need,” Caprio said.
“Higher education is looking for ways to gradually move away from ‘chalk and talk’,” he added. “Having a broadcast studio that understands education, lifelong learning, and professional development is an important asset for any research university.”