When students enrolled in Television Production meet for the first class of the semester, they will report to a brand-new studio and get to work learning all aspects of producing “News Night McDaniel,” the topical program that will air on campus cable channel 75. If their professor, Jonathan Slade, seems a little tired it’s because he’s been toiling around the clock to put the finishing touches on the classroom laboratory he designed and built this summer with colleague Robert Lemieux.

The construction-savvy Communication professors have transformed the former Biology computer lab in Lewis Hall B4 into a fully functioning TV studio that is more than four times larger than the previous one. The new space features on-air areas, a control room, edit and production suites, and a specialty edit suite where film apprentices will work on their senior capstone projects. There’s also a dedicated instructional space and a video projector so that Slade can lecture while screening dailies and segments.

“It looks awesome,” Slade said. “There’s something special about a teacher being able to build his own environment; it doesn’t seem like a sterile environment, it’s more like a home that you’re invested in.”

The lower level of Lewis certainly felt like a second home to Slade and Lemieux this summer, as they spent eight-hour days sawing, sweating — and occasionally swearing —while framing up the rooms, hanging drywall, installing ceiling tiles, a plate glass window, and monitors and cameras. Slade used a rotary saw to cut up old computer desks and created customized audio, video and playback consoles for the control room.

“We tried to recycle as much as we could,” Slade said. The professors also relied on the help of their friends. Industry experts from Maryland Public Television, Waganer Digital Video and Village Sound helped them brainstorm the floor plan. Members of the College’s physical plant team provided oversight. And colleagues from various departments stopped by to lend a hand and cheer them on.

“This has been the quintessential liberal arts project,” said Slade, who received his bachelor’s in Communication from McDaniel in 1988 and his M.F.A. in Cinema-Television Production from the University of Southern California in 1991. “The project required creative problem solving, teamwork, critical thinking, and developing a plan and sticking with it while adapting to dozens of unforeseen challenges. All of which is pretty central to the liberal arts.”