ABOUT NEWHOUSE III

Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications celebrates the opening of Newhouse III, the third building in the Newhouse Communications Complex. The $31.6 million, 74,000-square-foot addition was funded by a lead gift of $15 million—one of the largest private donations in SU history—from the S.I. Newhouse Foundation and the Newhouse family, and by donations from alumni and friends of the school.

New York City-based Polshek Partnership Architects were chosen to oversee the building’s design and construction, and ground was broken in 2005. The building was completed on schedule in August 2007, and will be dedicated on September 19 with a keynote address by John G. Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States. (Newhouse I, designed by architect I.M. Pei, was dedicated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and Newhouse II by William S. Paley, chairman of the board of CBS, in 1974.)

Designed specifically to foster collaboration through natural gathering places for students, faculty, alumni and guests, Newhouse III is warm and welcoming. From natural daylight streaming throughout the facility to expanded lounges and the popular Food.com dining area to high-tech laboratories that bring together the communications disciplines, the building will support learning for generations to come.

Highlights:

• The Center for Digital Convergence Suite, under the co-direction of faculty members from Newhouse and SU’s School of Information Studies, is engaged in a number of activities, including the ongoing development of tools to support convergent journalism. The center promotes research on and experimentation with media convergence in order to understand the future of digital media and to engage students and faculty in the process of defining that future.
• The Collaborative Media Room, where the highest concentration of technology in the building is found, permits students and faculty from all Newhouse disciplines to work together on current and future projects. The space functions as a newsroom, incorporating an eight-person editing rim, an assignment desk and a meeting room, and is also electronically linked to spaces in Newhouse I and II, such as the editing suites, studios and broadcast journalism and Macintosh labs. The space is designed to grow and change with emerging technology.
• The Barney Light Center for Inquiry, Innovation and Imagination—known as the I-3 Center—focuses the school’s energy for productivity in all areas of mass media. Here, students and faculty gather, process and present data for research related to specific courses or to enterprise faculty-industry projects. The center is meant to preserve and promote one of the school’s most important attributes—the healthy synergy between the professional and academic components of the faculty and the curriculum.
• The expanded Career Development Center (CDC) is a facility solely dedicated to serving Newhouse students in their career search, allowing them to explore post-graduation options in formal and informal ways. Moving from its original location in Newhouse I, the highly popular resource and reference area is now larger and provides greater access to information about job and internship opportunities. It also includes new space for workshops, resume critiquing sessions with CDC staff and other purposes. In addition, a large bank of computers links students with alumni through the Newhouse Alumni Career Advisory Network (NACAN), a database of over 3,800 alumni who serve as contacts for current students looking for information, internship and job leads or general guidance.
• The Executive Education Suite houses the school’s successful independent study degree program in Communications Management and supports the expanded offerings in non-traditional graduate education, as well as professional development workshops and seminars.
• The Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture looks seriously at the role of entertainment television in shaping popular culture. The center’s director, Professor Robert Thompson, is a nationally recognized expert in the history of prime time television and an astute chronicler of television’s impact.
• The Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium, named for Newhouse alumna and Syracuse University trustee Joyce Hergenhan ’63, seats 350 and provides the school with much-needed space for large events such as guest speakers, student activities, conferences and large classes.
• New classrooms, including two 50-seat classrooms, and a 100-seat theater-style screening room.
• Student Organization Offices serve the 12 student organizations tied to the school or various media professions, and encourage the growth and activity of these groups by providing space in which the administrative functions of the groups may operate.
• Food.com, a dining area, serves as the heart of the building, a true community center for informal interaction as well as lunchtime meetings and spur-of-the-moment collaboration. Easily the most highly trafficked area in its original Newhouse II location, Food.com has grown significantly in Newhouse III, accommodating more seating and an expanded kitchen and service area.

In addition, the words of the First Amendment, the legal foundation of American press freedoms, are etched in glass and wrap the building’s exterior, providing perhaps the most striking visual element.

With the completion of Newhouse III and renovations to the rest of the Newhouse Communications Complex, the school has achieved:

• The modernization of teaching and production labs, bringing them fully into the digital age, enabling greater collaboration among departments and majors.
• The opportunity to engage in research of value to media professionals and media scholars.
• A stronger connection to working professionals through mid-career training opportunities, new degree programs and a home for professional organizations.
• The engendering of an enhanced sense of community within the school and a better educational, social and extracurricular environment for students.