Iowa State’s Faculty Senate meetings are on the air now.

The first episode of “ISU Faculty Senate” aired Thursday, Oct. 9 on STV-9 at 7 p.m. and the meetings will continue to be aired each month.

Bill Woodman, president of ISU Faculty Senate, said he came up with the idea last fall to show people what goes on at senate meetings by taping the meetings and showing them on television.

“I think it’ll be a good thing when the bugs are worked out,” Woodman said. “Quite frankly, I think a lot of faculty don’t know what goes on in the senate … I think the more public you can make such activities, the better.”

He thinks after decisions concerning promotion and tenure were discussed in the senate there is a lot of distrust toward the senate right now, and he hopes the show will help eliminate it.

The Faculty Senate discusses such topics as curriculum changes, promotion and tenure changes, general faculty business and diversity issues, Woodman said.

So far the idea has been well received.

“Everyone thought it was a positive idea,” Gary Cornelious, supervisor of media resources, said.

Cornelious said the first airing went well, although there are still some timing problems which need to be worked out.

“It’s taken about a year to get the whole thing really working right,” Woodman said.

Woodman said they started taping the senate meetings last spring, but the first three months of tape will never be used. Woodman said it has taken practice to get techniques down to compensate for bad lighting and difficulties with sound.

The senate pays to have each meeting taped by the Instructional Technology Center, Woodman said.

The tapes are edited down to fit a one-hour time slot and delivered to Cornelious to be put on the program rotation, Woodman said.

The editing process can be tricky, he said. Woodman said the last senate meeting ran about three hours.

“It’s a judgement call as to what goes in and what doesn’t,” Woodman said.

Cornelious said they will begin the editing process of the last senate meeting today.

“That’s no easy trick,” he said, because they need to get timing right and select the most informative segments to show.

After editing is done, the tape is sent to STV-9’s general manager who then enhances the visual quality and sound and adds opening graphics before dubbing it.

Woodman said they have already received some feedback from the first program. Mostly, he said, people have called asking when the next meeting will air.

At the moment, the next showing is not yet set, although it will probably be in the 7 p.m. time slot again, Cornelious said.

“We wanted to target the prime time when most of the ISU commuity is at home,” he said.

Woodman said the programs are running behind now, but will eventually run as concurrently with the actual meetings as possible.

Cornelious said future running times will be announced on STV-9’s community billboard.