The Zinczenko New Media Center officially opened Monday at Moravian College with a ribbon cutting attended by its benefactor Dave Zinczenko, president and CEO of Galvanized.
Zinczenko is a 1991 alumnus of Moravian who has had a successful media career as a magazine publisher and author of 14 New York Times best sellers, including “Eat This, Not That!”
The idea behind the $200,000 center, built in a former computer lab in the basement of Reeves Library, is to provide students with the tools and experience they need to create multimedia projects using the latest audio, visual, digital and print equipment – and a practical advantage when they graduate.
Zinczenko said he conceived of the idea for the center over numerous discussions with Moravian College President Bryon Grigsby, a former Moravian classmate who graduated in 1990.
Both men pursued studies in the liberal arts – Zinczenko was a journalism and political science major and Grigsby was an English major. While the emphasis nationally has been on getting more students to major in science, technology, math and science as a way to find well-paying jobs, students who pursue the liberal arts often are viewed as at a disadvantage.
The pair said they wanted to create something that would give liberal arts students practical, hands-on experience in new media that would give them an edge after graduating. Zinczenko said he looked at the University of Florida’s new media center to glean ideas.
“We are actively involved in how liberal arts students can get jobs in business,” Grigsby said.
Zinczenko said the center would help students get published while in college so they have a competitive advantage. Zinczenko’s media company, Galvanized, opened an office near the campus and provides students with internships with national brands.
“Moravian is really the place where my love of media began,” Zinczenko told the small crowd at the ribbon cutting. He said the college “trained me for thinking what the next big thing is.”
With the new center and its instructors, “the students will discover it with our help.”
The center has $40,000 in equipment that includes a video studio with a green screen, eight Macintosh desktop computers and a soundproof recording booth where students can learn how to create podcasts, voice-over recordings and other skills.
“It’s a working media lab,” Zinczenko said.
The center is intended to be a complement to the media studies program being developed at the college, but it is open to all students.
