Edited by Wes Purvis.

By Spencer Raymond

It’s a right of passage for many college students: stage a protest. At Syracuse University in upstate New York, students are doing just that – speaking out against the school’s choice of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as its commencement speaker.

Every college needs a good protest now and then. And for seniors graduating from Syracuse University in May that time is now.

Dimon is at the center of debate on the Syracuse campus. Dimon will be speaking May 16 at the university’s commencement and a petition to remove him as the speaker has nearly 12 hundred signatures.  Audra Culome helped create the student group Take Back Commencement.

“We’re trying to make the point that our economy has failed us over the past couple of years and JP Morgan Chase has been a part of this crisis,” Culome said. “Whether they’ve come out a  good guy or a bad guy they’ve been a part of this crisis.”

To students opposing Dimon’s visit, it’s about what he represents: the banking industry, a economy in turmoil, and unemployment.

“I think that if any CEO from any company were to come, you know, even if it was a non profit, I think it would be inappropriate timing,” Culome said.

Dimon was chosen by the school’s Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor off a list recommended by a student panel. Cantor is standing by her decision. She says Dimon can speak with authority on issues that will undoubtedly affect all graduates.

“I don’t really see this as an endorsement of any particular position,” Cantor said, “but rather as an enormous opportunity to bring someone who has tremendous respect in the world in terms of his expertise and excellent of leading a major financial institution and who’s right at the table thinking about these issues. And from my perspective that’s exactly the kind of person that graduates should hear.”

But protesting students here say that kind of person is who’s responsible for the financial meltdown.

Some local residents are also upset.  In the past few years, more than 200 people have been laid off at a JPMorgan Chase check processing center nearby.

Some students also don’t like the fact that JP Morgan Chase funded a technology center on campus with a 30 million grant. They feel that buys the bank influence on campus.

“I think if people think about it they’ll realize that we have partnerships with many different both corporations, NGOs,” Cantor said. “If we had a speaker from IBM would one say because we have a partnership with IBM in a green data center on the hill that somehow that was wrong?”
Justin Klimaszewski is senior finance major. He created a facebook event – 55 members strong – in support of Dimon speaking.

“If Dimon hadn’t done the type of job he did leading the company and trying to avoid the financial system as we know it from going to total ruins, that could have been 200,000 more people out of jobs in the US,” Klimaszewski said, “you’re going to try to fault him for trying to correct the problems that were made? I don’t really see that point.”

Dimon is still slated to speak at the commencement. As for what student might do once they’re sitting and Dimon is at the podium. Ryan Hickey helped organize the protest and has one idea.

“We need to create a tangible and a visible event,” Hickey said. “Because if say 900 kids do something all at once in unison  wearing something very similar besides the commencement garments that we are supposed to wear I think that would be a huge sign.”

A sign, a protest, that for these young adults, will be their last as students.

Brad Horn contributed to this report.

That’s Master Control for CBS5 in Syracuse. That’s where I’m working (interning) as a producer. It’s part of the Advanced Producing class at Newhouse. Being at Channel 5 (WTVH) is a pretty sweet deal for a couple reasons.

In 2009, Barrington Broadcasting and Granite Broadcasting Corp made a deal that literally gutted WTVH in Syracuse. That meant all but a few employees were sacked. Those remaining were brought down the street to the studios of WSTM. So now there’s two news brands operation out of the same newsroom. Kinda cool right? If you check the website, it’s called CNY Central. That merges CBS5, NBC3 and CW5 all in one place.

For me it’s great because I have a lot more opportunities. There’s only the anchor, Michael Benny, and the dayside producer, Nate and that’s about it for people working solely on CBS5 shows. That means when I come in I get to do a lot. The internship through the Advanced Producing class lets produce a show once a week. So every Wednesday night the 11pm show is mine. I decide the order of all the stories, write what must be written and “booth” the broadcast. That means I sit in the control room and make sure everything is on time and nothing screws up. I’m on headset and can talk to the anchors on set through the IFBs, that’s the little wire they have in their ears.

There have been a couple exciting shows. Remember that plane that landed in Denver with the dude who everyone thought had a bomb? That was on a Wednesday and we led the show with breaking news (!!!). As details became more clear, we updated our viewers at the end of the show.

The 11 o’clock show has something that beats out other late night shows and that’s the Night Cap. Instead of the traditional “kicker” to end the broadcast – some funny or light story about nothing really, CBS5 at 11 reviews the top 3 stories of the day (or previews something happening tomorrow) plus gives viewers a final look at the weather. This is in an effort to give people tuning in to Letterman that starts in two minutes a little news, instead of a fluffy kicker. I like that.

]]> http://www.dispence.org/2010/04/cbs5-news-at-11/feed/ 1 http://www.dispence.org/2009/12/su-unveils-green-data-center/ http://www.dispence.org/2009/12/su-unveils-green-data-center/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:00:18 +0000 Spencer http://www.dispence.org/?p=203

Syracuse University unveiled a new, state of the art, green data center Wednesday only six months of construction. It’s where the school houses all the servers that run its computer network. SU Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina says the facility is “the most efficient data center in the world.”
The center is the collaboration of SU, IBM and New York State. The plan was to minimize the energy consumption of data centers – something vital in today’s computing world.

“So the national problem that we chose was the rocketing amount of heat and energy associated with running data centers, something that’s crippling businesses today,” said Vijay Lund VP Operations and Systems at IBM.
Server systems holding data for the entire SU campus not only use energy but give off heat. If that heat can be recycled the energy that creates it can be saved.
The event Wednesday gave IBM a chance to show off it’s new, energy efficient servers and computer-cooling technology and system management software.
New York State poured $2 million into this green data center. One of the green features are these liquid cooled doors that basically act like a car radiator using water to take heat away from the servers inside.
“Data centers right now use approximately 1.5% of all the electricity generated in the United States. And in the current trends of energy use it’s expected to double in the next three to five years,” said Frank Murray, President and CEO New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA).

The center is set to be fully operational in January and IBM plans to use it as a model of the future data centers. Perhaps the most innovative design feature is how the facility uses excess heat to heat the building environment.
The place generates its own power and can even send unused energy to the grid. The total price tag for the facility was over 12 million dollars. The center will use half the energy of a typical data center but SU officials have not said how long the center must be in operation for the cost to be worth it.

SUper Sports stopped by the Carrier Dome today for some good ol’ SU Woman’s basketball. SUper Sports is the television play-by-play production by CitrusTV and OTN. Our four camera set up (plus replay) was enough for a pretty good simulation of a network broadcast. I directed the show. That means I was repsponsible for calling which camera is on air, when to insert graphics and when to play replays among other things.

It’s a pretty sweet set up. CitrusTV provides the crew while OTN takes care of the equipment. We use a Sony AnyCast to cut the show. For replays, we use a Buff. The thing is a basically a poor man’s EVS. The Buff is better than a tape deck because you can instanly play clips instead of rewinding like you’d have to do with a tape deck. Playlists can be created to string clips together to make neat bumps into and out of breaks.

We spent most of the day setting up. Most of us where in the dome not 18 hours after Saturday’s football game. Already the place had been outfitted for basketball. The eastern bleachers where rolled over to Jim Boeheim Court. (That reminds me, should we call this place “Jim Boeheim Court on Ernie Davis Legends Field at the Carrier Dome?”)

It’s not easy setting up a show like this. We don’t have a TV Truck. Instead, all of our equipment is packed into a “Fly Pack” or several big, black, heavy cases.  We have to lug them wherever we go and set everything up from scratch every time. There’s a ton of cable to be run. From cameras to control room, audio from talent, video back to the talent and more.

After a while of setting up, EIC Ryan Balton and I got to thinking. Union! Here’s a pic demonstrating how we are over-worked. After talking with the crew we decided something needed to be done.

Notice the two IATSE logos…