ZU TV

Zayed University's Abu Dhabi campus has been airing its own television programmes put together by its students and broadcast through the university's intranet

When Ed Freedman, associate professor at the College of Communications and Media Sciences (CCMS), was asked how long it would take to set up a weekly student TV programme on Zayed University's Abu-Dhabi campus, he counted slowly to 100.

"When I hear a question like this, I normally count to three, but in this case even a five didn't seem enough," said Freedman, who teaches video production.

Philip Cass, CCMS's Assistant Dean, who had asked the question, admits that he was probably being over-optimistic at the time, but always believed that Freedman and his students could pull it off.

"Our former dean, Janet Keefer, gave us the go ahead to convert an office into a studio and Charles Hewitt, Abu Dhabi campus director, and Larry Wilson, Provost of the university, were very supportive of the idea," he said.

Today, ZU TV is very much a reality. It began with a video production class offered by CCMS in 2003.

Students covered various on-campus events, did faculty and staff profiles and video packages on various places in Abu Dhabi.

The following semester, a pilot programme was put together in the form of a news show. It included the best packages done during the video production class.

This semester, the programme has been put together by four students - Haya Faleh, Hayam Adam, Mariam Amiri and myself.

We have already done three news shows, covering on and off campus events. We videotape the events, edit the stories, anchor the news show and put it together on ZU's intranet for the students, faculty and staff.

Our aim is to try and capture all the important events on campus.

Our news coverage has included the National Day tribute paid to Shaikh Zayed, the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign - a blood donation drive for thalassemia patients on Valentine's Day and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's visit to ZU's Abu Dhabi campus.

A show usually includes at least one on-campus event, an off-campus event, a ZU faculty or staff profile and a weather forecast.

By mid-April, the ZU TV crew, along with supervisor Ed Freedman, is planning to have a bi-weekly TV show.

Eman Hammadi, a second year student from the College of Business Science at ZU's Abu Dhabi campus thinks having a TV station for ZU is a great idea.

"I congratulate the group working on ZU TV; they are putting a lot of effort into it and covering real issues such as the story about the Al Wathba prison facilities," she said.

She said the shows are well done and informative.

Hayam Adam, a third year integrated communications major, has been anchoring ZU TV's news shows this academic year.

She says she has been having so much fun working for ZU TV that she doesn't feel like it is a college requirement. It is more of an extra-curricular activity for which the crew gets academic credit, she said.

Mariam Amiri, also a third year integrated communications major, has been involved in covering many off-campus events.

"I don't think that we're treated professionally because we are usually the only national women out there doing this job. We need to be taken more seriously," she said.

The entire crew feels that working on the television programme is a great way to get hands on experience in broadcast journalism. It is also a good opportunity to meet high profile people and earn recognition for our work.

Haya Faleh, the fourth ZU TV crew member, feels working on these news shows is great practice for the future. "I would really like it if I got a job as a video editor or a producer at a TV station," she said.

CCMS has turned one of its office spaces into an ocean blue painted studio, which is well equipped with cameras and computers with editing suites.

Freedman is proud of the progress that ZU TV has made this semester, and thinks of the endeavour as yet another step in ZU's mission to educate the women and future leaders of this nation, and prepare them for careers that will help this country progress.

"It's students who are working on ZU TV, they are fully capable and they're doing a heck of the job," he said.

With students getting all this "hands on" experience, the college is also pursuing links with Emirates Media (EMI) to meet the call to increase the number of local women involved in broadcast media.