New York City College of Technology has been named the 2005 recipient of the “Martin Intelligent Lighting Technology Grant.” The runners up were the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and North Carolina School of Arts.
The Grant was presented on Saturday, November 12th, at a special ceremony at the ETS-LDI trade show in Orlando, FL. Martin US’s vice president of sales and marketing, Eric Loader, comments, “Once again this year there were a large number of applicants with very strong packages which were submitted for consideration. We are very pleased to award this year's Grant to New York City College of Technology. Their Entertainment Technology program, which is cutting edge and targeted to the core of our industry, will certainly benefit from the award but they will also utilize the grant in a way which will affect a large number of students in a key area of the market."
The Entertainment Technology Department at New York City College of Technology offers a nationally unique degree program featuring a Bachelor of Technology. Located in Brooklyn Heights, the college is central to the largest entertainment industry center in the country. The Entertainment Technology program trains students for careers as scenery, lighting and sound technicians, technical managers, equipment marketing representatives and personnel for distributors and rental houses in the entertainment industry. The program offers additional career options for technicians in the allied fields of film and television production, architectural lighting, display design and construction, trade show exhibition, club, casino and theme park operations, and all related performing arts production.
On hand to accept the award on behalf of the College, and accompanied by several students and faculty, was Charles “Chip” Scott, professor in the Entertainment Technology Department. “The students and faculty at City Tech are absolutely thrilled that Martin chose our college for this year’s grant,” he says. “This next generation of equipment provided by Martin Professional will allow the addition of a course in lighting maintenance and troubleshooting. We have excellent courses for programming, for design, and the intro level, but we are missing the step where students learn the day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute, details on how to get the rig up and keep it there, and then make it work the way the client wants it to look.
“Our hands-on teaching philosophy requires a lot of functioning fixtures. We did not own enough gear to do productions and teach several classes of 16 students each semester while allowing several of the units to be used as training fixtures for maintenance, all at the same time. There is a risk of temporarily losing the use of key units when students make mistakes in maintenance labs. Since mistakes are the most common form of learning how to do things the right way the second time around, we encourage students to tackle difficult tasks with equipment in the classroom. I think this is an important element of our lighting curriculum and Martin Professional is making it possible.”
The Martin Intelligent Lighting Technology Grant is valued at $50,000 and consists of a variety of Martin fixtures and control products. Martin also provides technical training and support for the winning college or university, as well as quarterly seminar’s on emerging technologies and application discussions. Each runner up school will receive a Martin ShowDesigner Gold Network software design package.
This is the fifth annual Grant award presented by Martin Professional, Inc. The Martin Intelligent Lighting Technology Grant is awarded to an accredited college or university in the USA each year. Grant applications are accepted in the second quarter of the year, with the selection of the winning school chosen by the Martin Management Team and Board of Directors in association with the LDI exhibition each year.