There are few private quiet spaces on most college campuses where students can record podcasts or converse online with counselors or health care providers. In this episode, Michael Revenaugh and Forrest Warner join us to discuss how Hamilton College addressed this by providing students with privacy booths and soundproof recording spaces
Michael is an instructional designer who specializes in video and audio production at Hamilton College. Forrest Warner is also an instructional designer with a focus on 3D modeling, graphic design, visualization, spatial analysis, and video and audio production, also at Hamilton College.
Transcript
John: There are few private quiet spaces on most college campuses where students can record podcasts or converse online with counselors or health care providers. In this episode, we examine how one campus addressed this by providing students with privacy booths and soundproof recording spaces.
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John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.
Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…
John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…
Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.
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Rebecca: Our guests today are Michael Revenaugh and Forrest Warner. Michael is an instructional designer who specializes in video and audio production at Hamilton College. Forrest Warner is also an instructional designer with a focus on 3D modeling, graphic design, visualization, spatial analysis, and video and audio production, also at Hamilton College. At Educause last year, Michael and Forrest presented on the use of privacy booths at their institution. Welcome Michael and Forrest.
Forrest: Hey, thanks for having us.
Michael: Yeah, thanks.
Forrest: We’re super excited to be here.
John: Our teas today are… Michael, are you drinking tea?
Michael: I do not currently have tea, I apologize, but my go to is a Celestial Seasonings mint magic.
John: Very good.
Forrest: I’m rolling with chamomile this morning. I like to keep it calm, keep it smooth in the mornings. This is nice.
Rebecca: That sounds good.
Forrest: What are you all drinking?
Rebecca: I have Hunan Noir.
John: …and I have spring cherry green tea.
Forrest: Very nice.
Rebecca: We invite you here today to discuss the use of privacy booths on your campus. Can you talk a little bit about how this initiative started?
Forrest: So Mike actually joined us kind of just after we had started this initiative. And actually I started just after they had actually even come up with the idea. Nhora Serrano, our director, and I believe is was also Brett Olsen, were working on expanding podcasting on campus. And what we were running into, and I think I talked to you about this while we were at EDUCAUSE, was we have spaces on campus that can do those kinds of things, but they’re department specific, so you have to be taking courses in that department in order to have access to those spaces. So if you ever wanted to use any kind of recording equipment or anything like that, it just wasn’t available to you, unless you happen to be taking a video course, an audio course, whatever. So they were looking to expand in the library to give them better access. And the idea they had come up with at the time was to get a couple of free standing audio booths. We had ended up finding a model that we liked. Studio Bricks was the company that we had, the plus one model, which was kind of meant for like one and a half people. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know how you fit a half person there, but whatever.
Michael: I think our record was four at one time, [LAUGHTER] students decided that they could get in there. It was evocative of phone booth stuffing. [LAUGHTER]
Forrest: Yeah, and I mean, the booths were great. We had them for a year. It was kind of leading up to the renovation that we ended up doing that following summer. So that would have been the fall of ‘22 is when we got them. They worked really well for what they were. They were kind of like a phone booth style booth. It had audio proofing, and they had a dedicated computer, audio equipment. We had Shure microphones in there as well. It was a nice little space, and really just kind of like, “Hey, let’s see if this is something the students are interested in.” And right off the bat, we had a lot of action from that. And then, leading into the renovation, we decided to go all in, and we built four of the audio booths, one of which we’re in right now, which are much larger, and then we can talk about it more detail a little bit. But great spaces… get used a lot. The data is like off the charts. We’re getting a lot of information, a lot of people using the spaces. So yeah, very cool.
Michael: Yeah. We had a bit of a unique opportunity to transition, because the first floor of the Burke library here at Hamilton underwent a gut renovation in the summer of ‘23 so we could remap the entire floor plan, and we did, and we moved some things around, and were able to allocate space specifically for these four booths. So it wasn’t found space, we could build them specifically to our needs, which was great.
John: And the booths that you’re referring to and that you’re sitting in right now seats two comfortably. How many people could fit inside of one of those?
Forrest: The rooms are like eight by eight…
Michael: Yeah, eight foot by eight foot. So we have two dedicated microphones so people can do interviews or projects, like we are doing currently, but we also have some more video applications. As you can see, but our listeners can’t, behind us we have pull-down green screens. We have three point lighting installed in them too. And we also have ceiling microphones that we can switch to. So if people want to do any sort of smaller video project, newscast, what have you, they can use those things as well, but we did primarily design them with podcasting in mind. So as far as fitting people in here, I think the most I’ve done is 10, and that’s usually like new student orientation or Parents Weekend or faculty instruction. Like, here’s the things that we have, come on, like, let’s all get into this one so I can point out all the cool stuff and then shoving them in that way, but I think typical student usage maxes out around four or five, and they seem to be able to do that with no problem.
Rebecca: How soundproof are these studios?
Forrest: Fairly, fairly soundproof. They’re nice because they do have some paneling. Actually, the gray paneling you can kind of see right now, that’s all sound paneling. And also the door itself has soundproofing capabilities as well, so it does stay very quiet in here.
Michael: Yeah, I unfortunately don’t have a number on it, but walking outside, I’m unable to hear conversations that happen. And I’m sure if screaming started, then it would get through, but for any mid-range conversation, you can’t hear anything from the outside.
Forrest: Which is obviously ideal.
Michael: Yeah.
John: Between the smaller privacy booths and these larger rooms, how many of these do you have on campus, and how do students access them? Are they just open all the time, or must they be reserved in advance?
Michael: That’s a great question. We actually have four currently: the two modular ones that we used, we have shifted out of the library, we’ve repurposed them, and currently [LAUGHTER] they’re trying to figure out what to do with them. We were demonstrating a need for this student privacy, and it’s just kind of figuring out where on campus they would best go, as far as like existing blueprints and footprints, and where the students would be able to find and access them. In terms of scheduling for our four permanent booths, they are open whenever the library is open, but they must be scheduled. We currently use the 25 live scheduler, which is the system that the campus uses, so students are limited. They can book up to three hours a day in the production booths, and then the next day they can get three more. But we try to limit it that way and encourage students, as much as possible, to make reservations, especially towards the end of the semester, when they are getting very crowded, and also just for our use in data collection. One of the frustrating things that we run into is we have the statistics that we’re able to collect, but because the booths are open all the time, we know that they’re being used a lot more than the recorded data reflects, because students are seeing that there’s an open door, I’m just going to pop in there and not fill out a form online, because why would I? I’m right here.
Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about how you’re seeing the spaces used? What kinds of projects students are doing in them?
Michael: Sure, in our data collection, we basically ask to avoid any infringing privacy. We ask if they’re using them for an academic purpose or other. And other encompasses a wide…
Forrest: …everything
Michael: … range of things, either someone’s personal podcast project, we’re seeing a lot of telehealth and therapy sessions going on, we’ve partnered with the Wellness Center on campus, so students that partake in online therapy are frequently looking for some place to go, that they don’t have two or three roommates hovering around all the time. So they’re pointing them in our direction to let them know that these resources are available. Job interviews are another big one for students looking for internships or opportunities after they graduate.
Forrest: Yeah, the big thing to note about Hamilton in particular is that it’s an entirely residential campus, so every student lives on campus, and finding the time and space just to gain a little bit of privacy is actually really difficult. And like Mike said, it’s difficult if you’re in your room trying to do a counseling session, and then your roommate and three of their best friends bust into the room while you’re doing that. It’s like, oof, really hard to do that, it can probably be really annoying in general. But these spaces, again, right from the beginning, we didn’t mention that we partnered with the health center, and they’ve been a great partner, and they’ve been directing students to these spaces. So if they want to do their telehealth in some place private, this is available to them. And these have been really great for those purposes, on top of the academic uses. It’s kind of like the added bonus for finding that people are probably using these spaces more for those uses than academic at certain points. So the data has been really great, and even just the amount of reservations has been really great. A little bit of data is actually really telling. So the students have been really helpful with that.
Michael: Yeah, also completely separate from the technological aspect, I believe they’re popular just for quiet study spaces as well. So sometimes I’ll come in in the morning and all of the keyboards and mouse and everything will just be pushed completely out of the way. The students just set up their own computer, and we don’t know what they’re doing, [LAUGHTER] so it could just be studying or small group work, but they’re available, and as long as they’re not stepping on each other’s toes as far as the schedule is concerned, it’s up to them what they want to do.
Forrest: Yeah, so far, so good.
Rebecca: I think what’s nice is that it’s in the library, so there’s no stigma to maybe what the space is being used for; whereas, if a space is in a particular location, like if the space was in a health center, or if the space is in career services, or if the space is in a particular location, then there’s an assumption of what someone’s maybe doing in that space. But because that’s in the library, that’s a multi-use space, and there is less stigma attached to maybe why someone’s using this space. So there’s less judgment or less concern about why someone’s using this space, and I really like that about this particular project.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. There’s less stigma if you’re setting up a therapy appointment and you don’t want people to know, say “Oh, I’m just going to the library,” and it’s completely fine. It’s also a universal space on campus for everyone, which allows it to be more welcoming. We talked about the other booths that are in the studio arts building. And if you are a government major who’s never stepped foot in that building, then there’s kind of a territorialism about it. It’s like, “Oh, I have to go to this science building, but I’m not a science major. Are they going to know that I’m not a science major and chase me away?” It’s like, no, the library is for everyone, so everyone is welcome to come in and use these spaces. And we think that has really been reflected in the numbers.
John: How have faculty responded? Have they increased the number of digital storytelling or podcast projects in response to the availability of these booths?
Michael: Well, that is another role that we as instructional designers have on campus, is that we offer course support. So I primarily take the lead in podcast assignments, so I make myself available to courses that express interest in it. So we see that ebbs and flows. There tends to be more in the fall than in the spring, but faculty are adding more podcasts in terms of final projects to their courses. Some other language faculty will take advantage of the technology for pronunciation and recording that way… small group discussion for a less like fully produced final project.
Forrest: I mean, it’s really kind of from all over the place, and it’s interesting, and actually, this is probably a good time for me to kind of walk through those numbers, just to kind of give you an idea of the general response over time. We introduced the freestanding booths in the fall of ‘22. We got a total of 76 reserved hours, which was primarily aimed at the academic which was like, “Yeah, that seems like a pretty good number.” We were pretty excited about it. And then in the spring of ‘23 we ended up with 181 reserved hours, which is a huge jump. And we’re like, “Hey, yeah, man, these are catching on. This is awesome.” We’re feeling good about going into the fall with the new booth. Fall ‘23 after the renovation had happened, we went from 181 to 934 reserved hours. So again, that was like, “holy moly.” And actually, that’s, I believe when we talked, that’s what you saw. We also have some additional data from this past semester. We went from 934 to 1496 reserved hours. So another 60% jump in usage. And really exciting. Again, it just kind of shows you like, they want this. And I think we had about 300 unique users to the space, potentially, students that would have never spent time in the library, to students that tend to spend time here, but just they’re like, “Oh, this is a really great resource.” So yeah, we were really excited to see how much these are actively getting used. And this is primarily student usage.
Michael: Yeah, there are some faculty that use it for research. They conduct interviews. Actually, one of our college archivists has started doing oral histories. So he’ll bring in community members and use the production booths to record oral histories of departments or initiatives that the college has done over the years, and then back those up in the college archives. So we’re just seeing a really wide range of use in them. And it really speaks to there has been a need for spaces like this.
Forrest: I think leaving it open has always been kind of the way to do it. It’s not creating this wall like we said, it’s like giving people as much access as they can get and just see what they do with it. And I think if you gatekeep or whatever, you’re just holding yourself back. So this has been a really great experiment. I think it’s been very successful for us.
Rebecca: Is there so much demand now that you need more booths?
Forrest: It’s a good question.
Michael: That is a good question. I don’t think we’ve maxed out, again, we’re kind of hamstrung with our data from the people that actually reserve the booths, versus just going and use it. In my personal experience, if I’ve ever run into a conflict, like, oh, I have this booth reserved, and I come down and someone’s sitting there working on something. I’m an adult, so they tend not to give me any pushback. And I say, “Excuse me, I have this booth reserved,” and they leave immediately. But we also have our digital media tutors who are in the library, and then, just conversationally, we haven’t really heard of any conflicts.
Forrest: Even, like, sometimes there’s even open booths available. So if for some reason, somebody was in your space, you could go over and just reserve it real quick, because we keep reservation QR codes right on the doors. So if anybody walks up at any time is like, “Hey, I want to pop in the booth, they can reserve right then.”And we do get lots of walk ins. The data we gave you is only a percentage [LAUGHTER] of who’s actually using the space.
Michael: Again, as is perhaps predictable, towards the end of the semester, around finals week, once those podcast projects are coming due, we do see a big spike in the usage, and then they’re pretty much booked as long as the library is open. But the library also adds extra hours then too. So I don’t think we’ve yet maxed them out, [LAUGHTER] but there’s an additional building that’s being built behind the library and has potential for additional spaces in this vein.
Forrest: Yeah, it’s essentially a Center for Digital innovation, and it’s supposed to help us expand into things like we built the new Makerspace with the new renovation. This will hopefully be more of some spaces dedicated, some probably a little bit more, I don’t want to say intense, but getting into things like robotics or metalworking,
Michael: Yeah…more purpose built, as Forrest mentioned, as part of the renovation, we’ve made a makerspace which houses our 3D printing and virtual reality, and unity and video game development, but we were a little bit hamstrung by we were renovating a space and things that require access to ventilation, like soldering or circuitry or things like that, unfortunately, we weren’t able to fit into that particular makerspace.
Forrest: The new building will have more of those capabilities, again, allowing folks to expand the capabilities and what they’re able to do safely. That’s always the concern with any of these spaces, just making sure everybody knows what they’re doing, and obviously not sitting there breathing in toxic fumes is always a good thing.
Michael: And Hamilton’s slogan, “Know thyself,” and it’s an open curriculum, so the entire college really encourages student exploration and trying new stuff. So all of the things that we’ve been doing here at the Library really fit that mission.
John: You mentioned that towards the end of the semester, there were a lot of student podcast projects coming due. Could you give us a feel for the types of classes in which podcast projects are used, or some examples of the types of podcast assignments that have been assigned there?
Michael: I’m working with one class right now that is in the Classics Department. It’s a mythology course, and it’s going to be a modern retelling of classic myths. And so are going to be working with scripting those out. I think one of the more successful ones that Forrest and I both worked on was in the art department, which was a course on architecture and politics.
Forrest: …art history.
Michael: …art history, yes. So it was a course focused on the intersection of politics and political environment, and how that influenced the type of buildings that were being built and vice versa. And that was pretty fascinating.
Forrest: Yeah, and that was partnered with a WordPress workshop. So the students were doing some web design as well, and they were able to incorporate their podcasts into their web pages that they were creating as part of a course website. And obviously we’re able to add a lot more media and other things to it. So it was really a cool, really multimedia project, and the students really did a lot of work.
Michael: Yeah, some examples from that were: one student did like the new Buffalo Bills stadium and how taxpayer money is used for certain private building projects. There were a couple that were very Hamilton-centric. One building in Hamilton has a very historic wallpaper to it. However, it is also problematic, and it’s just like, “what is the tension between preserving this very famous printmaker piece of history, but how do you properly present that when it does have its flaws? So they’re really well produced and well thought out. And then with course help, again, with the supplemental materials available on their WordPress websites, they were really well presented as well.
Forrest: I mean, you probably get a couple different courses that are like, some are like, they want more of a production value. And then some are like, a little bit…
Michael: I’d say most of the ones we work with are kind of the NPR-style journalistic reporting, but I also worked with a professor in the creative writing department who wanted to give students experience reading their own work. So they would record themselves reading short stories, and then added a little production element, like some spooky music beds or sound effect underlay to emphasize parts of that. And then there are some people that are just like, I want four students to read this article and have a discussion about it on microphone, and then don’t need that edit at all. Just 20 minutes. Hit record, hit stop, turn it in.
John: Sounds like a nice mix of projects.
Rebecca: What role does the library play in preserving some of this work and archiving it?
Forrest: Our primary role is support. We work with the faculty to help them design these assignments, figure out when we’re going to come by and work with the students, give them general support after the fact, and we help them with things like they’re looking to clean up everything. We’ll work with them on that. And then if they want to actively put that out into the world, sometimes, like, especially with things like websites and things, faculties want to make sure everybody can see what the students are making, what they’re doing, which I think is really exciting. Those will continue to exist in that form. Sometimes faculty members don’t want that stuff out in the world too, and they want the students to feel that they can do these assignments discuss in a way that they want to still keep their opinions relatively private, so they might not put those out into the world, and depending on the project, I think sometimes those end up in the archive, but I think that comes from the faculty end more than anything, not necessarily that we do that automatically. So I think if it’s going to be part of the long-term archival process at the college, I think they can just actually work with our on-campus archivist and make it available.
Michael: Yeah, I think they primarily land as student projects, and we make them aware that if you want to share this, either some things that you need to be more mindful of. Music rights is one. But if professors just want their students to go nuts, have fun, this is only for in class, then sure your intro can be Beyonce, but if you want to then share this out in the world or put it in a portfolio to bring with you to a job interview, then you might not want to do that. But, in general, once they’re student projects, they belong to the students. We’ll sometimes have a copy of them, like on Blackboard, if they host them that way. And then it’s as far as archiving, it’s basically like, do we archive student papers? Not particularly. So even the WordPress sites, once they get up, we make it clear to the professors, like, yeah, we built this website for your class, and it’s your responsibility. Like, how long do you want to keep maintaining it? Or make sure, like, the links don’t age out, or you end up, like, with a broken page that people can get to in four years time. It’s relatively new, so we are still negotiating that as we get new projects coming in.
Rebecca: For folks that might want to get started in creating media booth or privacy booths on their campus, what advice might you have in kind of those initial steps to get started or starting a conversation about that on their campuses.
Forrest: I got a feeling most campuses actively could use the privacy spaces. I mean, even just seeing what we’ve gone through, I’m sure there’s lots of ways to apply that to any college at any size. Again, we’re a unique size. We have about 1800, 1900 students. Again, they’re all residential, so it’s easy to kind of like focus them. For us, we were lucky enough to be able to have the resources to afford to purchase things like the freestanding booths. They aren’t cheap. I wouldn’t say everybody could just go out and do that, but you could easily change a space that maybe isn’t getting used very much into a podcasting space. Again, just to kind of prove the point, see if it’s necessary, you know, soundproof it how you can, get the equipment that you can, and then advertise it as an open space. The students actively respond. They definitely love the access, particularly if you’re running into the same issues that we’re running into with departmentally kind of blocked off spaces… things like that.
Michael: I’d say, location, location, location. And it’s a tough choice, because space is at a premium, and we understand that there’s a lot of things that need to happen, but if you can find a space in a building that is open to the entire campus that students feel comfortable in, that students naturally pass, or that is on their way to somewhere else, like centrally located, and that would be good. But again, it’s a delicate balancing act, because you want them to be as soundproof as possible, but you also want there to be a lot of people around.
Forrest: Just hiding these in the basement somewhere, I think, is probably not, even though that always seems like it would make sense. It’s like, if they don’t see them, they’re just not going to use them.
Michael: Yeah, out of sight, out of mind. Just put them somewhere that the students would go anyway.
Rebecca: Do you think partnering with the health center or wellness center was actually really important in the initial steps of your project?
Michael: Absolutely. I’d say yes, very much so, as far as publicizing them to the students and making sure that we had the right setup, making sure that the right equipment was here, making sure that students knew about them and felt comfortable. This Wellness Center also donates fidget toys. So we have in each thing, we have baskets of toys and things that people can manipulate with their hands when they’re doing therapy, just that sort of somatic processing. So invaluable resource to connect over there and just make sure that the students know about it. Because again, communicating with students, I don’t think we’ve really fully figured it out. You can blast them with emails all you want, but if they see, oh, library, delete. Like getting students to internalize the information is an ongoing challenge, so I guess the more angles you can get them with communication from the Wellness Center, communication from the library, communication from their faculty, just to get feet in the door.
John: In terms of the rooms that are set up for podcasting, what type of software do you use, and do you provide any training or instructions for students on how to record?
Michael: Yes, hardware wise, we have our Shure SM7Bs. We also have a Vocaster 2…
Forrest: …audio interface. The audio interface, very simple to use, just relatively compared to some of the more complicated things out there, especially for first-time users.
Michael: And for our audio processing and editing, we use Audacity primarily. It’s free, it’s open source. It gets the job done, an equity issue. Students have been paying enough for tuition and books to be like, “Oh, okay. And for your final project, you need to buy Adobe.” Yeah. [LAUGHTER] We do offer support for like GarageBand and Audition and a few other things that if students want to use it, then, yeah, we can help them out with it. But in course support, I default to Audacity. I encourage them. It’s free, platform agnostic. Download it right now. Typically for core support, I will do two workshops. I will do a pre-production and things to keep in mind, and then I’ll do a post-production where I do an intro to audacity in class for those ones. But also our digital media tutors are trained up on Audacity and can at least do the basics. So if you have a question and when you’re in the booth, flag them down. I h ave office hours, and I’m always happy to walk through things or troubleshoot any problems that students have.
Rebecca: So we always wrap up by asking, what’s next?
Michael: Coming up next? We are learning how to best utilize our green screens right now. They’re really easy to use with like Zoom backgrounds, but finding a good video processing software that is more intuitive or easy for the students to take advantage of. So there’s a little tweaks here and there across the board.
Forrest: And now we’re prepping for the new building, one of the things we’re actually doing more of too, because again, we built the maker space last summer. We got through a year with it, and we’re like, okay, we survived. Everything seems to be working and helping bring people into the space. I know we’re working with our students, our DMTs, who were primarily just tutors in the past. We want to get the space a little bit more active and a little bit more engaging for them and the students on campus. So we had been doing some what we called lovingly Makerspace Mondays, and those were staff led in the past. Those are events that would take place on Monday evenings, where we would need some sort of workshop that was more meant for fun. Those were great. Staff have a hard time doing them the whole semester, so we’ve opened it up to our DMTs, who are actually going to help us provide programming throughout the semester and hopefully bring in a lot more students in general, just to see what’s available. They don’t have to necessarily follow, kind of like, Hey, we’re doing 3D printing VR or whatever, the students, the DMTs, can explore areas that they’re particularly interested in. It could be crafty. It could be computer based. You can do stuff about ChatGPT. You can do stuff about air dry clay. So there’s all these different options. And again, we’re just trying to open it up. so people feel like, “oh, I can do a lot more here than I thought.” So again, just trying to get the word out and yeah, usually that’s through word of mouth, which, honestly, even with the production booth, I think was part of what made it successful was actually more about word of mouth than direct advertisement. So if you make a good interesting space, the students will find it,
John: And those numbers you reported certainly attest to the importance of that word of mouth in spreading the word about the availability of these resources. It sounds like a really nice arrangement.
Rebecca: Sounds like a lot of fun.
Michael: Yeah, definitely.
Forrest: It is that too. Yeah. When things succeed, you always feel good, and then you just have to, if things aren’t going as smoothly as you want, you just tweak it up and make some changes and keep pushing forward, right? So I feel like we’re been super successful here. And there’s other areas I’m sure we could do a little better in, and we’re just going to keep pushing forward.
Rebecca: Well, it’s nice to hear some updates from my hometown.
Forrest: Clintonian?
Michael: Nice, that’s awesome.
Forrest: I’m from Sandy Pond, so both my parents graduated from Oswego, which is where both of you are at, right?
Rebecca: Yes.
Michael: Both of my parents graduated from Oswego as well, teachers all day, right? [LAUGHTER]
Rebecca: Some hometown exchanges. [LAUGHTER]
Michael: That’s right, [LAUGHTER] my wife is a native Clintonian
Rebecca: Small world. Thanks for joining us.
Michael: This was great.
Forrest: All right, yeah. Thank you for having us.
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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.
Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.
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