Long gone are the days of posting flyers to attract the attention of students walking through the Holmes Student Center. These days, NIU thinks bigger.

Last fall, NIU installed five 42″ plasma screen televisions, costing roughly $12,000 each.

Three of the televisions are in the HSC and two are located in the Campus Recreation Center. Reactions have been generally favorable.

Where the money came from

The televisions were obtained through Best Buy Business’s university/government sales team program, according to Christian Riddle, manager of the Huskies Den in the HSC.

“We bid out things to a number of people, but it makes it easier to have the Internet to check baseline prices,” Riddle said. “We do a considerable amount of business through Best Buy.”

The three video screens in the student center make up the Video Messaging System, which Riddle manages through the Huskies Den.

“The Video Messaging System is three state-of-the-art plasma displays spaced throughout the building,” Riddle said. “We have thousands of students going through the student center at any given day. We felt it better suited the lifestyles of our students.”

The screens at the HSC were purchased using Pepsi Program Support funds. Because NIU uses solely Pepsi products, the university receives additional program funding from PepsiCo. The HSC receives some of this money to purchase equipment for student involvement.

“When you consider the posters put up in windows that students have to pay for out of their budgets, the Video Messaging System is extremely cost effective,” Riddle said.

Student groups are able to advertise for free on the Video Messaging system provided they follow the guidelines on the student center Web site.

Student Response

The televisions at the Rec are used to play television stations which students may watch from the entryway.

“We’ve had great responses from students to date,” Riddle said.

Students may request a particular channel, but John Sweeney, director of recreation services, doesn’t feel this practice will be common.

“We play a variety of things; news, soap operas, ESPN Sports, things like that,” Sweeney said. “People are coming and going and they can view whatever is going on, but we don’t expect people to watch a full program.”

Bill Berg, a food service administrator at the HSC, said the televisions were a good investment, but probably won’t become extremely popular.

“It’s nice to have for a diversion, but people don’t come to the Rec to watch TV,” Berg said. Berg has worked at the Rec Juice Bar since it opened at the beginning of the year and hasn’t noticed any increase in traffic since the screens were installed.

“We used to have a lobby that had TV’s so people could meet each other before or after working out,” Sweeney said. “When the idea for the juice bar was proposed, we decided to go all out on the remodeling. New seating and nicer TV’s were just part of the process of refurbishing the lobby.”

Correction – An article in Wednesday’s Star said NIU purchased five plasma TV’s for the Holmes Student Center and the Student Recreation Center for $12,000 each. The TV’s were purchased for $1,200 each. The Star regrets this error.