Lawrence residents might start seeing more familiar faces on national TV news, thanks to a new satellite system now operational at the Dole Institute of Politics.

The satellite uplink housed on Kansas University’s west campus will allow KU faculty members to remain on campus while being interviewed by networks. In the past, they had to drive to Kansas City or Topeka.

“It will make it possible for a lot of KU faculty who are experts on national and international issues to be featured on CNN or C-SPAN or whatever,” said Diana Carlin, a KU dean who expects to use the system. “It’ll be much easier for networks to access faculty. We’re not inside the beltway so we can’t just stop by their studio.”

The $400,000 satellite uplink system was the brainchild of Richard Norton Smith, former director of the Dole Institute. Smith is a frequent guest on network news shows and said he was surprised to learn KU didn’t have a satellite uplink when he arrived on campus. It was the only university in the Big 12 not to have one.

Video images are sent from the uplink, which resembles a traditional satellite dish, to a satellite orbiting Earth. The satellite sends images to the recipient.

The university or the image recipient will pay for satellite time, which can cost hundreds of dollars per hour.

Smith has left KU, but the satellite uplink remains for other faculty to reap the potential benefits.

For Carlin, dean of the Graduate School and international programs, that means driving to west campus when networks call this fall to talk to her about presidential debates, her area of expertise. She’s appeared on PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN in recent years.

Carlin said one of the first questions networks asked was whether faculty had access to an uplink.

“I’ve had to go over to Kansas City several times over the years,” she said. “This will be great.”

Richard Konzem checks out video in the Simons Media Center at the Dole Institute of Politics at Kansas University. Konzem is deputy director of the institute. A satellite uplink at the center is now operational, meaning KU faculty members can be interviewed at the center and their image beamed to a satellite for broadcast anywhere in the world.

Richard Konzem, deputy director of the Dole Institute, said faculty interviews were just one of several uses the university planned to make of the satellite uplink.

KU first used the system to send former President Bill Clinton’s speech in May to networks for their use.

Other potential uses, Konzem said, are sending football highlights to sports programs, and some athletic events also may be broadcast through the uplink instead of networks bringing in satellite trucks. The system also will be used to allow people in other locations to participate in conferences planned at KU.

And Konzem said the equipment also could be used to disseminate promotional materials from KU’s university relations department.

“If we’re going to talk to people in the state of Kansas about the great things we do (at KU), you’d better have some video package you’ve put together to include with that,” Konzem said. “Particularly with today’s youth, it’s all video-driven.”

Institute to include Lawrence’s first satellite (7-18-03)