Grove City College Media Services is co-hosting the 2015 annual conference of the Consortium of College and University Media Centers next week in Pittsburgh.
The conference, Oct. 14 to 18 in Pittsburgh Marriott City Center, will bring together hundreds of professionals from higher education media centers and the audiovisual industry. CCUMC’s annual conference features keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, vendor showcases, networking opportunities and collaboration among institutions.
“Our team is excited to help lead a national media tech conference,” Matt McQuaig ’03, director of Media Services for the College, said. McQuaig sought membership with CCUMC for Grove City College in 2008, and has since been actively involved. He also created a virtual guidebook, which will be a first for this conference, allowing users to access and interact with conference materials from their phone or computer, rather than carry a printed program.
Additional planning members from Grove City included David Stadler and Kyle Harrington. Stadler, who works as a media infrastructure architect at the college, was instrumental in forming the regional cohort of CCUMC with Pittsburgh-area institutions. Harrington serves as events coordinator and student technician manager for Media Services, so he helped assemble the resources and technical staffing to make the event possible.
This year, for the first time, four institutions – Grove City College, Duquesne University, University of Pittsburgh and Westminster College – have collaborated to bring the CCUMC conference to Pittsburgh. During the conference, attendees will be able to do physical and virtual campus tours of all the host institutions.
The conference is an important setting for participants to learn about emerging technology trends, as well as new patterns that are developing in the world of technology within higher education.