Students and faculty at Ball State University aren't quite sure whether to call it the "Letterman Building," the "Communication Media Building" or the "Letterman Communication Building" but, they do know one thing - it looks great.
The three-story Communication Media Building will house the College of Communication, Information and Media offices, Indiana Public Radio and classrooms on the first floor, WCRD and Telecommunication offices and classrooms on the second floor, and Communication Studies on the third floor, Nancy Carlson, an associate professor of telecommunications and previous chair of the department, said.
The building will also connect the Robert Bell Building at the corner of McKinley and Neeley with Ball Communications Building, ending at the Art and Journalism Building, creating one massive structure.
The $21 million building will be named the Communication Media Building at least until Sept. 7, when prominent Ball State alumni David Letterman's name will appear on the new campus landmark during the building's grand opening.
"I think that it's appropriate that TCOM's most famous alumnus is being recognized like this," Dominic Caristi, associate professor of telecommunications, said. "Every year he donates over $18,000 to the school and has continuously supported the student radio station."
But, students won't have to wait until the grand opening to experience all the building has to offer. Its unofficial opening will be Monday, when students begin classes for Fall Semester.
"A lot of buildings have their ribbon-cutting ceremony after they are opened," Caristi said. "That's not uncommon."
Construction of the building began in 2005, and encloses about 75,000 square feet of office space, classrooms, and studios. The building is the first on campus to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified, being energy and environmentally conscientious, with bamboo walls and terrazzo, a recycled product from marble waste chips, floors.
Along with "green" design of the building, students are also getting state-of-the-art audio studios and larger classrooms, Carlson said.
"The WCRD studio is now the best student radio facility in the nation," she said.
The studio for Ball State's student-run radio station is located on the second floor of CM and features separate offices for the student managers, sound-proof rooms that were designed for optimum acoustics and a large window where spectators can view the recordings.
"In the old building we were teaching audio classes in rooms not designed for audio classes," Caristi said. "Now we have rooms that give us more space and are designed to be the best."
The audio rooms also feature wall panels with different depths cut into them to reflect sound best, as well as inverted triangle ceiling panels and isolation cabinets for computer modems that make a lot of noise when running.
"Students are going to be able to have everything they need when working with this equipment," Caristi said. "Even students who want to do recordings as parts of their extracurricular activities are going to have access to this first-class equipment."
About half of the TCOM department's staff moved into the new building, many of them leaving their offices that the department was borrowing from University Teleplex at the Ball Communications Building, like Caristi did.
"I like to think this is my pay-off for having an office with no window for nine years," he said. "I love it."
When classes start, the building will offer students technology resources available 24 hours a day and New York- and Hollywood- comparable studio equipment rarely found on a college campus.
"CM is really wonderful," Carlson said. "I feel really lucky and blessed to be in such a wonderful building."
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