The University of Maryland College Park has opened the new $30 million home for the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
The state-of-the-art John S. and James L. Knight Hall includes 53,400 square feet of high-tech classrooms, multimedia labs, offices and space for professional journalism centers, bringing together all of the college's programs under one roof. The new journalism school features abundant open space, glass and light, to echo the transparency of necessary for good journalism. Knight Hall is also the first "green" building on U of MD's campus. Students begin the spring semester there on Jan. 25.
"The state-of-the-art Knight Hall is one of the most exciting new centers for the study and teaching of journalism in the nation. This is a transformational event in the life of our college and our university," says Dean Kevin Klose, a former Washington Post editor, National Public Radio chief and broadcast executive who came to Maryland last year. "We are indebted to the visionary leadership of President [Dan] Mote, and the Maryland legislature, and the generous support of the Philip Merrill family, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and scores of other charitable foundations, alumni and private citizens."
The building is nearly twice the size of the old Journalism Building, built in 1957 for $350,000, which had never undergone a major renovation despite an increase in enrollment from the 100 students who comprised the the facility's first residents to the 650 undergraduate and graduate students there today.
Knight Hall offers many architectural gems that were the brainchild of former Dean Thomas Kunkel, including the Great Hall, which he called the family room or "hearth" of this new home. The two-story-high lobby extends the length of the building, with front and back doors. Groups of couches, flat-screen TVs, a snack bar and stools at a cyber caf�-style counter for computer workstations are designed to make this the building's primary gathering space. It overlooks the East Lawn, a landscaped new courtyard that physically ties the journalism college to the Benjamin Building and Tawes Building and provides a common green space.
Knight Hall is expected to be the first building at the university to earn a LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, gold rating. It features a high percentage of recycled content in its construction materials as well as regional materials, plumbing fixtures designed to reduce water use by 40 percent, an underground rainwater-collection system that will irrigate the property, and natural daylight providing more than 75 percent of its lighting.
The small and large seminar rooms offer video cameras and microphones that instructors can control to stream their lectures online. The Richard Eaton Broadcast Theater goes a few steps further, with 70 seats, a retractable whiteboard, rear projector, four robotic cameras and field cameras and a control room; it can be used as a classroom or studio.
The "news bubble," also on the first floor, dubbed the "students' playground." Open around the clock, the multimedia lab offers capabilities for graphic, text and audio creation around a serpentine table that allows students to work together.
The building's third floor houses offices and the professional centers: the Journalism Center on Children & Families, Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, National Association of Black Journalists and American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors. The trade magazine American Journalism Review has moved next door to Tawes Hall, where UMTV will remain. Fiber lines connect the university's TV station to the control room in the Eaton theater.
Studio C, or the "garage band space," on the top floor is a giant area where students can collaborate on multimedia production. It includes a section of audio recording sound-conditioned booths, a computer lab/classroom and a video studio. It will open later in the spring semester.
The state contributed $16 million to the building, with the rest coming from private donors. The building is named for the brothers who founded Knight Newspapers (forerunner of Knight Ridder), and later the Miami-based Knight Foundation. The foundation has given the university more than $21 million, including $5 million for the journalism school's new home.
Source: University of Maryland College Park
Writer: Walaika Haskins