Suzanne Calling

Lakeland has a fantastic event every month, First Friday. The streets downtown are blocked off, and it's a giant, family friendly street fair. Organizations can set up booths, dance troupes perform, the local Moonbounce place sets up for kids to blow off steam and families just stroll and enjoy the nice evening. Tonight, about 15-20 of us donned shirts and talked to members of the community about the legislation to separate USF Poly and mingled at this local event. It was a great thing to do-for two reasons. First, it gave students an opportunity to fill in the details that can't be covered fully in the media. Let's face it, the space constraints of a newspaper and time limitation of television news broadcasts means that you can't tell everyone's story, even if they have compelling reasons to be at the school. So students shared stories. Second, it was good to see the support that exists in the community. When a state senator puts a target on your school and sa...

Last week, I shot an interview for my Digital Video class of my friend, Jennifer. From that, she had the idea of doing more interviews. I ran with that concept and said we should have a student roundtable, and share the video results with the legislators in Tallahassee. This morning, we spent four hours with eight people around a table talking about their experience and how if USF Polytechnic disappears July 1st and becomes FPU, they may not be able to continue their education, if they have to commute to Tampa, that it will place a huge financial burden on them (hello $4 a gallon gas times 75 mile round trip) and some of the programs offered at Poly aren't currently available on the USF Tampa campus. While I ran around, coordinating three cameras to collect all the statements made, three television film crews recorded it all. In the past hour, I've watched two of those, one from BayNews9 and another from News Channel 8. In each, Jenn spoke up about the issues on the minds ...

The Florida senate voted 33-6 to break off USF Polytechnic into the state's 12th university, effective July 1st. This, when they cut $400 million from the existing 11 state universities. I weep for those locally who now have no affordable State University campus (it will take a while for the new school to get SACS accreditation) and due to work and family obligations, will have to give up the ability to attend college classes. Ugh...

Well, for now, I get "Video removed by user" messages, which after two hours of uploading, I most definitely did NOT do. Here is a rough cut from one of the two cameras, no effects, of the interview that inspired a bigger project.

Today, I shot a video interview of a friend for my Digital Video class. In it, I was supposed to ask why she chose USF, what her major is, favorite professor and what makes USF different than other schools she's attended. The interview was with a friend who has been equally passionate about the USF Poly experience, opposed to separating the school from the USF system and well, that was conveyed in this interview. I'm honestly looking forward to editing the piece together Monday night (after I get my sale copy of Premiere Elements, that is). Then she commented "we should do more of these interviews with ALL the students we can rally, post them on your blog and on You Tube! The media's not talking to us, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take matters into our own hands!" I have to admit, it makes a lot of sense. So, it looks like my lighting equipment will get a workout, my video skills at a A/B camera setup will be put to good use and I may have some ...

Polytechnic is defined as 'many disciplines.' You've probably heard of a handful of schools with the Polytechnic designation, Cal Poly, Rensselaer Polytechnic, NYU Poly, and a handful of others. You may have even heard of my alma mater, USF Polytechnic. I proudly wear my many tee shirts emblazoned with the school name that my student activity fees bestowed on me and got asked more than a handful of times "what exactly IS a Polytechnic?" Oh, I gave the definition above and expanded further that the polytechnic model is applied learning with an interdisciplinary approach. Netted down further-it is a hands on environment where you use the skills of more than one subject in each class. That first time I visited the campus and spoke to an admissions advisor, the explanation sold me on going to that campus instead of driving a little further to Tampa, where the course offering catalog gave many more options for times and sections of classes. There are trade offs, t...