Center for Media Innovation and Research

The Center for Media Innovation and Research (CMIR) has been a subject of discussion and funding for more than two years in the College of Journalism and Communications.

For a year, two committees met to discuss plans for the Center. The full faculty has seen two presentations on the Center — one at last year’s faculty retreat and one at this year’s retreat.

But most of the real planning for the Center has been like the Center itself — behind wraps. Once construction was underway for the Center, brown paper has covered the glass windows and glass doors that are the hallway wall of the Center.

Today as I left the college, the door was open into the Center, and I made a quick visit and took these photos with my iPhone.

The main room has five tables that are to be pods for student working together. The large black box in the back corner is a sound booth (with the door opening to the left). The large black rectangle to the left of the sound booth is a large 9-panel Samsung television.

At one point, the plan had been to open the Center next semester. But the equipment won’t be ready by then, and faculty still needs to determine how classes would be able to utilize the facility. A faculty committee recently was announced to lead that discussion.

But just as an impending visit by company can promote a little tidying of the house, I’m thinking the Journalism Department Advisory Council’s campus visit may have prompted some overtime work to have the Center ready to show them for an open house.