By Karina Valdes
A state-of-the-art space for innovation and creativity is opening at the University of Miami School of Communication. The Koenigsberg and Nadal Interactive Media Center (IMC) is poised to transform experiential education at the University by giving students collaborative spaces and a fully-equipped multimedia agency to create, learn, and expand their portfolios.
“Students need to have access to the tools that are driving creative work across communication industries,” says Gregory J. Shepherd, dean of the School of Communication. “But I also think it is essential that we provide spaces that encourage students to interact across areas of expertise and interest. This space will encourage collaborative and project-based learning.”
In the Center’s multimedia agency, students can gain hands-on experience in a professional setting by providing creative services to clients. Spearheaded by lead gifts from Bill Koenigsberg, B.B.A. ’77, president, CEO, and founder of Horizon Media., and Miles Nadal, founder of MDC Partners Inc. and chairman and CEO of Peerage Capital Inc., the IMC is slated to be a unique space on campus where collaboration and creativity intersect.
“In my business career, I have always believed in the power of human capital to achieve great things. Nowhere is this practiced more purely than at a great university. What I hope the Interactive Media Center does is leverage excellent resources and facilities to give promising students an even greater ability to make a difference in the world,” says Nadal.
Students participating in the agency will be immersed in traditional and digital communication including writing copy, designing collateral material, creating websites, applying research, and developing multimedia content.
“This center is going to give students the ability to be better, to hopefully have the ability to think smarter and, most importantly, to set an example of what students coming out of school need to know from a knowledge base in the new digital world we are living in,” says Koenigsberg.
Construction on the IMC began just before the end of the spring semester, when the Reading Room on the first floor of the School of Communication’s Frances L. Wolfson Building was razed. The construction project expanded the exterior façade of the Wolfson Building, allowing for 2,500 square feet of renovated interior space.
The redesigned space includes a glass-enclosed war room for conferences and brainstorming sessions, interactive DIRTT media walls that take visualizing to the next level, and “BuzziHubs” that allow for semi-private meetings. The IMC is set to be a hub of collaborative experiential education at the School of Communication.
“Students will be able to produce work that will build impressive portfolios, but they will also learn to work as part of a team, acquiring the interpersonal and relational skills that are keys to success in today’s business world,” says Shepherd.
The dedication ceremony for the Koenigsberg and Nadal Interactive Media Center will take place on Friday, December 2, 2016, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at the Frances L. Wolfson Building, Ground Floor.
