KALAMAZOO – The Irving S. Gilmore Foundation has awarded a $1-million grant to Kalamazoo Valley Community College to locate its Center for New Media in the expanded W. S. Dewing Building in downtown Kalamazoo.
When the $9.6-million project is completed by the end of July and the building goes into service for the fall semester, the Center for New Media will serve 1,000 enrollees at its downtown location each 15-week semester. These will include both traditional students and practitioners seeking to upgrade their credentials in new media technologies.
This is just the latest indicator of the Gilmore Foundations unflagging support of college projects that are designed to add to our communitys educational and cultural resources, said KVCC President Marilyn Schlack referring to past grants that helped build the Kalamazoo Valley Museum and the Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC).
The Gilmore Foundation has also been the prime supporter of the 2002 and 2003 Kalamazoo Animation Festival International (KAFI) that has been co-sponsored by KVCC and the Center for New Media. The next KAFI is slated for May of 2005.
New media is coming into play in manufacturing, health care, the life sciences, education at all levels, information technology, and communications. It is part of corporate training, medical simulations, motion pictures and TV commercials, museum exhibitions, architecture, packaging, finances, electronic games, marketing and advertising, and courtroom presentations.
KVCC established the Center for New Media in 1999 by blending portions of its programs in graphic design, computer-information systems, and business technology. Since its creation, the Center for New Media has not enjoyed the blended operational base as has the merging of its disciplines. Portions of its programs have been located at both the Texas Township Campus and the Arcadia Commons Campus.
The college purchased the Dewing building, which was constructed in 1929, from the Greenleaf Companies, to bring all of the new media disciplines under one roof and provide adequate space for a program unique to the Midwest. The move will also place its students in closer proximity to businesses and professionals utilizing these new technologies.
