When we left school in May, Newhouse III was nothing more than a cement pit.

Now that it’s a cement pit with the hollow shell of an academic building on top of it, I figured I’d take this opportunity to do the Newhouse touring staff a favor and give prospective students a glimpse into the future of this beacon of media education.

We’ll start with the outside. The original plans for Newhouse III called for an inscription of the First Amendment on the front wall of the building. But since Chancellor Cantor can see that from her office in Crouse Hinds and took offense, the plan was scrapped at the last minute. Instead, the First Amendment will be scrawled on a piece of paper by a COM 107 TA and dangled in front of Dean Rubin as he chases after it in a hamster wheel located in the basement of the complex. Not only will this keep our dean in peak physical condition, but the energy Rubin generates will be used to power the entire building.

On the first floor of Newhouse III there will be a newly revamped ‘hall of fame,’ featuring the portraits of prominent Newhouse graduates. This display will include an updated version of legendary broadcaster Marv Albert’s picture with a preserved chunk of the skin he bit from his lover’s back in 1997 stapled to the frame. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the biting, a new, one-credit course will be offered in Newhouse III next fall called ‘BIT 345: How not to embarrass your alma mater.’

A 15,000-square foot makeup studio will encompass the entire second floor of Newhouse III. Finally, the hundreds of Katie Couric wannabes who were accepted to Newhouse because their daddy is the manager of a radio station have a safe haven to put their faces on before practicing in front of the camera. But, of course, this will all be in vain when later their professors tell them that they need hair extensions or they will never make it in the broadcasting business. Your average camera adds 10 pounds, ladies. The cameras at ‘CBS Evening News’ add 15.

The top floor will house the new student lounge. If you look at the specs about Newhouse III, the concept behind the lounge was to create an area in which students could meet with each other and engage in productive discussion. Unfortunately, the planners forgot to take into account the nature of your average Newhouse undergrad. Instead of a forum for lively discussion, the student lounge will actually be a festering mess of students bragging about who got the highest grade on their Com Law test. Or how many internships they were offered for the summer. Or how they had been working at their local NBC affiliate since they were 13 years old and they’re only in Newhouse so they’re guaranteed a full time job there, not for the education.

Newhouse III’s grand opening is less than a year away. How those engineering geniuses will manage to fit such prestige and prominence in one building is beyond me. Perhaps they’ll save some of it for when they build Newhouse IV in front of Crouse College by adding three more sides to Cantor’s wall.

Steven Kovach is an English and textual studies and newspaper journalism major. His columns appear weekly in The Daily Orange. You can e-mail him at sjkovach@gmail.com.

Published on September 28, 2006 at 12:00 pm