With classes, homework, part-time jobs, club activities, sports, and community service, students can find it difficult to find time to attend another event. A student organization at the University of Connecticut is working to resolve that problem.
The University of Connecticut Student Public Access Network (UCSPAN), created in 2008 as a UConn version of C-SPAN, was designed to cover Undergraduate Student Government (USG) events, but the program quickly expanded to record a variety of public events on campus.
Each year, UConn offers a wealth of events to the campus community, often resulting in sparse attendance at some venues and overflow audiences at others. UCSPAN tries to bridge this gap by creating a public archive online where students, faculty, and staff can view footage of events.
“The Internet allows us to begin this unique experiment in information distribution,” says Chris Mattera, a senior political science major and executive producer of UCSPAN. “We want this program to become a part of the way students and the public get their information.”
UCSPAN will consider filming any event open to the public. While all student groups are encouraged to request event coverage, the program reserves the right to decide what it films. There is minimal editing before the final product is uploaded to the UCSPAN website, where anyone can view the footage free of charge.
“We try to pick events based on what we feel is most beneficial and relevant to the student body,” says Dan King, a senior cognitive science major and operations director of UCSPAN. “This means that an event like a forum on tuition increase at UConn will take priority over other, less critical events.”
Currently, UCSPAN regularly films the biweekly USG senate meetings and a monthly event called “Straight from the Source,” a forum where students ask questions of UConn administrators.
UCSPAN aims at providing transparency in University administration while offering new opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to participate in some of the many events that take place at UConn.
“It can be really hard to find time in my schedule to attend all of the events that I’d like to,” says Kevin Henri, a senior history major. “I wish I could attend everything, but it’s just impossible. If I can go online to watch an event that I just don’t have time to go to in person, that makes life so much easier.”
UCSPAN is a pilot program funded directly by USG. Members of the executive board are currently speaking with students from other universities to see whether they would like to start similar projects of their own.
