Students may soon expect to see even more construction sites on campus. The second phase of additions to the Center for Film Studies is projected to begin this March and end by January 2008. The addition will include a 120-seat screening room capable of running 35 mm, 16 mm, and digital films.

“We’re very happy to get these spaces so we can serve the needs of the campus,” said Professor Jeanine Basinger, chair of the Film Studies Department.

The new addition will be used for a multitude of purposes, from hosting the Film Series to screening movies for non-film department classes. Although smaller than the current screening room in Goldsmith, the new screening room should make booking easier.

“We’re sort of running out of space now,” said Lea Carlson, administrative assistant for the Film Studies Department. “It’s terrible booking spaces.”

With such a high demand for screening room, space has been a concern for the Film Studies Department for a while. According to Basinger, last year 21 different departments used the current screening room. In order to accommodate, professors have had to improvise in various ways, including holding some classes on Sundays.

“We’ve needed this for a long time,” Basinger said. “We have very crowded classrooms. It’s going to make a very big difference.”

“I’ve already got people asking to use the space,” Carlson said.

According to Basinger, the Film Department had been planned all along to build Goldsmith in two phases.

“We built it in two sections to make sure we had the funding,” she said.

The new construction is a long-awaited waypoint in the rise of the Film Department.

“When the Center for the Arts was built, there was no film major,” Basinger said. “We were crammed in basically two rooms with more majors than you can shake a stick at.”

The additions will also feature a much-needed temperature-controlled room for film archives, which are currently stored in a woodframe house that does not have the best environment for effective film preservation.

“We will now have the first really good archive storage on campus,” Basinger said.

The planning process involved many voices, including alumni, faculty, and student committees. According to Basinger, alumni were particularly useful because of their hands-on knowledge from graduate school and the film business itself.

“It was a very happy process,” Basinger said.

Basinger insisted that the construction was not using any Wesleyan money and that alumni were indispensable for the planning and funding of the new phase.

“We had to raise all the money for our building,” she said.

Upon being asked if she wished anything else would be included in the new construction phase, she mentioned that she would have liked a third screening room and more space for storage. Still, she is far from disappointed.

“Truthfully, we’re very happy about this,” she said.

Basinger cites participating in this construction project as one of the most satisfying things she has ever done at Wesleyan.

“It is not often that such a great team is assembled,” said Project Manager Alan Rubacha.