On this week’s episode, the deputy editor and campus news editor of the Chronicle discuss Arts in the Dark, the Renegades Dance Team, ASL Ghost Storytelling, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, FrankenToys and library relocation.
Transcript:
0:05: Welcome to Chronicle Headlines.
0:06: I’m Marc Balbarin, the deputy editor of the Columbia Chronicle.
0:09: Right now I’m dressed up as Shy Guy, and unfortunately Will is not going to be here today.
0:14: So we have a guest host, Anna Bitz.
0:18: Welcome back.
0:19: Thanks.
0:19: I’m Anna Bitz.
0:20: I’m the campus news editor of the Columbia Chronicle, and I am dressed up as Yoshi today.
0:26: The rest of our editors are all the Mario characters, so
0:30: it’s gonna be fun.
0:31: Yeah, we have Levi producing.
0:32: He’s dressed up as Luigi right now as well, so it’s gonna be great.
0:37: Anyways, Wicked Week.
0:39: How are you feeling?
0:40: Yeah, so it’s been a very, very eventful week, with Wicked Week happening.
0:44: There was over 20 events on campus by different student organizations, things happening Monday through Friday, and it all started with Arts in the Dark last Saturday where Columbia students and faculty, they created things in their classes or they performed in, you know, the dance groups and whatnot, so
1:04: that was a big event to start the week.
1:05: Yeah, there was over 100,000 people expected to
1:10: view the event, and we had about 150 Columbia performers at Arts in the Dark as well.
1:15: It was entirely like a prairie theme with all their masks and costumes and everything, and we also had the Renegades Dance Team do a performance as well.
1:26: Yeah, so some of the events that were covered this week, we started off Monday with the ASL Club’s ghost storytelling.
1:35: I know, so that was hosted by the School of Communication and Culture, so that was a fun way to kick off the week for sure.
1:42: Yeah, it’s such an interesting format to do like storytelling as well, because it’s just so, ASL is more like expressions in addition to like
1:52: you’re signing and everything and not just like oh so you already got to be,
1:59: you got to be, you know, more interesting, unique with how you portray your stories. For sure, yeah. Yeah. In addition, on Tuesday, “topics in theatre technology” class, they had a haunted house with Doctor Murder.
2:15: Yeah, so that was like an immersive experience.
2:18: It was created by the class and they supposedly were on a tight deadline for it, so it showed how, you know, an event can come together super quickly, so.
2:27: Yeah, what else, we had also on Tuesday, the annual costume karaoke by SGA and the Karaoke Club.
2:34: Yeah, so that brought over 60 students to the Hive.
2:37: There was a line waiting out the door.
2:39: Students were very excited for that event.
2:41: A lot of them showed up in handmade costumes, which was very cool.
2:45: Yeah, I wish I could go to that event, but unfortunately, I forgot.
2:50: But we’ve talked, me and Will, we’ve talked about this before, how much we love karaoke so much and we were supposed to go to it, but yeah, we both forgot.
2:58: Anna, how do you feel about karaoke?
2:59: I do not do karaoke, unfortunately. What, how come?
3:03: One day I might have to join you guys in karaoke, but until then.
3:08: What else did we have this week?
3:10: We had, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, is coming to Columbia on Friday for a one night show.
3:18: I guess it will have already happened.
3:20: Yeah, we’re just waiting on our reporters to get that story out.
3:23: Yes, and so the students throughout the week were doing their final rehearsals for it.
3:29: It’s just a one night show to celebrate the end of Wicked Week happening.
3:33: It’s directed by Columbia students, so that is very cool.
3:38: Yeah.
3:39: Oh, and on Wednesday we had a really fun event that I actually hosted as part of the Cosmos Volleyball team.
3:47: It’s the Cosmos Costume Dodgeball Tournament.
3:51: I invited a lot of clubs and organizations.
3:55: It’s the first collaboration event between all the athletic orgs at Columbia in addition to members from our senior administration like Dr. Emmanuel Lalande, the senior vice president of Enrollment Strategy and Student Success, and Nathan Bakkum, the senior associate provost for Academic Operations.
4:14: Now in the past there’s been staff vs. students events between the volleyball team and senior administration, but it’s the first time where we actually teamed up with them and we won the entire tournament.
4:26: It was really fun.
4:27: It was really fun.
4:29: Good.
4:30: Let’s see what else happened this week.
4:33: In the library on Tuesday, students made FrankenToys, which was quite cool.
4:38: if you’re unsure what those are, we have some great photos posted with that story that show the creations students made.
4:45: They had a ton of secondhand
4:47: stuffed animals and they like desecrated them and disassembled them and remade them into their own little creatures, which was a very cool event for Wicked Week.
4:57: Yeah, it’s very gory.
4:59: I’d hate to be like a toy from Toy Story just watching all this.
5:02: It’s just like.
5:03: Think of like Sid from Toy Story one and how he tore apart all his toys and merged them together.
5:09: Yes, that’s literally what they did.
5:11: Now just imagine those FrankenToys coming to life and like “play nice with your toys.” 5:18: Okay.
5:21: What else happened this week?
5:24: Anything?
5:25: In other news besides Wicked Week, I heard there’s some changes going on at the library, right, Anna?
5:30: Yeah, so, the Columbia library has been in the 624 S. Michigan Ave. building since 1995, I believe, and after some changes with the building, so the library is on the first five floors of the building, but it’s a 14-story building.
5:51: And so floors six through 14 have been empty since 2024, when faculty vacated that space in, there was going to be a potential sale of the building in 2024, that did not go through, but the top floors have remained empty.
6:08: And so it’s just a library and the bookstore in that building right now.
6:13: And so the college confirmed last week that the library will be moving to 33 E. Ida B. Wells Dr., potentially on the fourth floor as the main hub.
6:23: So the fourth floor used to be like the area where the ASL and the English departments were.
6:30: Those are no longer programs at Columbia and so that space is fairly empty, so that’s one of the areas that they’re looking at. I’m trying to think what else on that.
6:41: I mean, I for one think it’s a great area to move the library to because the library building on Michigan is just so disconnected from the rest of campus, but at 33 we now have the Center for Student Success.
6:55: We also have the Honors Lounge here as well.
6:59: In addition to WCRX and all these first-year students taking their gen eds, so I think the library being here is, it’s a great resource.
7:08: Yeah, yeah, there’s the tutoring center here, Ames Hawkins, the dean of the School of Communication and Culture, they said that they’re very, very excited to have 33 be that clear first-year building, having all those resources in one space. And I agree it’s a clear first-year building with the gen eds here and the School of Communication and Culture here, so.
7:32: There’ll be a lot of good resources in this building.
7:34: Yeah, something they talked about during the opening of the Center for Student Success is that they want to stop the Columbia bounce.
7:41: They want to stop people from running around all the campus trying to find the resources they need.
7:46: So there’s just another part of those efforts towards reducing those long travels.
7:53: Yeah, and the new library space will be funded by the same grant that funded the Center for Student Success from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.
8:00: So, it’s not coming out of the college’s financial, it’s all from a grant.
8:05: Oh, that’s even better.
8:07: Anyways, that’s it for this week of Columbia Chronicle Headlines.
8:11: Once again, I’m Marc Balbarin, the deputy editor of the Columbia Chronicle, and I’m Anna Bitz, the campus news editor of the Columbia Chronicle, and we’ll see you next week.
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