It has been nearly two months since WYBC radio was forced to relocate from its Hendrie Hall studio to the Olympia Building on Temple Street, but the move has provided the undergraduate-run radio station with several opportunities to revamp its overall working environment.
The organization had no choice but to move from Hendrie last summer when the School of Music needed the building for offices and facilities.
General Manager Katherine Kunz ’03 said the station took advantage of the relocation to replace old equipment and office furniture.
With new computers and upgraded digital equipment, the radio station plans to keep closer tabs on its trainees and encourage increased professionalism in all of its workers. A second production room was created along with a news desk, which the station did not have previously.
WYBC’s main focus is on improving its teaching methods by making the training process more of a hands-on process than it had been in the past.
“We want to keep better track of our personnel and make membership at WYBC the ongoing learning experience that it ought to be, with ‘continuing education’ classes in production, news, voice training, etc.,” Kunz said.
Nicholas Webb ’04, a WYBC disc jockey, said the Temple Street studio is more spacious and better laid out than the old location.
Moving to a new space was not entirely an easy process, Kunz said. The station is dealing with several inconveniences that resulted from its relocation.
Presently, security is one of WYBC’s greatest concerns. Kunz said that not only do students and employees have to be extra careful walking to and from the farther off-campus location, they also have to use caution inside the new building.
“We are trying to promote heightened awareness of internal security among our members, which is hard when people have been used to how the Hendrie space was created,” she said.
The station’s location above The Playwright’s Pub, an Irish pub on the first floor, has brought about noise difficulties. Kunz said the pub’s speakers seem to have been installed just under WYBC’s studio. The station has mentioned this problem to the building’s owners, but no resolution has been reached yet.
Webb said another difficulty was organizing compact discs that came in during the moving process
Kunz said the new working environment and facilities demand a more professional, tighter staff.
“The change has been absolutely striking — the quality of our broadcasts has improved tenfold simply by improving our working environment. It’s all about atmosphere — our members respect and enjoy where they work, and it shows,” she said.