Staff Editorial | Retreat plasma screen should be used creatively

How many ads do you see in a day? Between Internet advertising, restaurant flyers slipped under dorm room doors and television commercials, the average college-age student is constantly bombarded with advertisements.

Perhaps because we are tired of this trend, the commercialization of campus and public spaces has been a theme of this academic year, from the recent forum on the bookstore’s future to ongoing controversies surrounding the presence of Aramark and Coca-Cola at Vassar. These debates were reignited when Campus Activities decided to install a plasma screen in the Retreat during spring break.

Although the new screen is now being used to broadcast information about campus events, it initially featured a slew of advertisements for the Apple Computer Store. Such advertising for a corporate enterprise teeters toward infringing on maintaining the College’s primary social space—the Retreat—as free from crude commercialism.

If a television must be present in the Retreat, it should be used in ways that benefit the campus community, not advertisers. Notably, after members of the Vassar community complained about the Apple Store ads, the ads have been removed. This turn of events is a testament to Vassar students’ keen critical awareness of the commercials being (literally) woven into their surroundings.

Dubious as the decision to install such a TV may seem, it was done with good intentions. Campus Activities wanted to move the promotional screen above the Information Desk because many had complained that this location was not visible enough.

According to Assistant Director of Campus Activities Megan Habermann, several students were consulted, and the Retreat was decided upon as the best place to put the TV. The purpose of the screen is to play slides of upcoming events, publicizing elements of campus life with which students may not be so familiar.

While advertising organization events is important, <i>The Miscellany News</i> encourages more informational and creative uses of the plasma screen. For example, at New York University, the lounge in the basement of the Bobst Library has plasma screens that run 24-hour newscasts from CNN and CNN Headline News.

If a cable connection were added to the screen in the Retreat to make it a television instead of solely a screen, it could show news during certain hours. At a minimum, a slide with news headlines of the day could be added to the current format.

The benefit that organizations might enjoy from having their events advertised on the screen should be weighed against the benefit that the College community would receive from having quick bits of news available without a computer or paper in front of them.

While screens can certainly transform social space for the worse, the plasma screen’s placement creates the possibility for conversation about classes, course plans, and clubs—as well as current events. These things would otherwise take a less prominent role in Vassar students’ often cloistered day-to-day schedule.

Using the screen for news updates is not the only possible alternative use for the screen. In the spring, student art (and installations) often adorns the walls of the Retreat. The plasma screen could, on some occasions, function as a similar art space.

For example, Joseph Redwood-Martinez, President of the Class of 2011, has designed a project to make the new screen a forum for creative and artistic thought. Echoing the 59th Minute video project in Times Square, Martinez’s one-minute silent video shows students speaking the letters of the alphabet and would interrupt the blur of commercials that students see in a day.

Airports, restaurants and even college libraries across the nation are all starting to install screens and televisions. Vassar need not abstain from this trend, but should think carefully about positive and enriching content for media such as plasma screens in social spaces—and should avoid predictable pitfalls like inundating us with even more ads.

—The staff editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 16-member editorial board.