Tom Rieland:
Something Karen Holbrook had always talked about is the outreach and engagement part of the university and how that is important for Columbus. So we connected on a number of levels to bring this together, and the space was there. This was a big black box, that's all it was. And we were able to fill that box, you know, with really some wonderful technology and design elements. As you come in, of course, the exhibit space is very prominent. It's not just the weatherman with the chroma key and the typical green screen where you can project something behind you. It's also a foreground key, so you're in the middle of a background and a foreground. But also we have a large studio, the Battelle Studio. And we have a control room that really controls all the aspects of the studio as well, that's already equipped and it will be set to go in a couple of weeks. We have a second studio, the Nationwide Studio, a smaller talk and performance studio. We also have the new media lab, which will be outfitted again with laptop computers for teaching new media to youngsters. And then upstairs in the mezzanine area we have offices and a wonderful conference suite. We can have all kinds of things after hours when COSI's not here and during, and during when COSI's open, we can move these exhibits out in about 45 minutes, and that means we can have the entire space for all kinds of outreach activities. For instance, premiering a Frontline documentary that has issues that relate to Columbus but it's a national documentary, and then having a really local discussion based on that national documentary about how that impacts our community. Building our relevancy for the community is important, and so it's going to be a wonderful asset for us to be here and be kind of in front of people's faces about what WOSU is about in the community in the future.
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