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Inside the new Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts, Bill Hunt teaches a class and radio students work in the audio wing.

New Look for Specs

Specs Howard School of Broadcast Ms moves to a larger facility in Southfield.

DEBBIE L. SKLAR SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

A

fter 24 years at the same
location, the Specs
Howard School of Broad-
cast Arts has pulled up
its roots and moved to a new spot
in Southfield, its home city.
Founder Jerry Liebman, a.k.a.
Specs Howard, said the school
outgrew its former location at the
One Northland Drive building,
so it was transplanted this sum-
mer to a spacious new complex
at 19990 West Nine Mile at
Evergreen.
"We didn't just move," said Mr.
Howard, 68. "We created a whole
new school, just like we did when
we first moved to Southfield in
1970."
The first Specs Howard school
was located in Redford Town-
ship. It remained there less than
six months before it moved to
One Northland Drive.
"Our first school was in an old
saddlery shop," Mr. Howard said.
"It only had about 900 feet of
space, two studios and a con-
verted oven for a filing cabinet."
When the school moved to One
Northland Drive, it had 2,400
square feet and several new ra-
dio studios.
Expansions gradually brought
the school to 19,500 square feet.
During its more than two
decades at One Northland Dri-

ve, the school served thousands
of students and hundreds of ra-
dio, television and video em-
ployers.
"The new complex is 30,000
square feet with 105 rooms and
it is state-of-the-art," Mr.
Howard said. "We're not • ex-
panding to increase the number
of students, but to give them
more training and a better edu-
cation.

"We didn't just
move.
We created a whole
new school."

— Specs Howard

"We've been talking to a lot of
employers and industry people.
It's always been our philosophy
to give employers everything
they need in an employee.
"We're six years away from the
21st century? but we want to get
our students ready now."
Mr. Howard's new facility, in
the former S&H and A&P head-
quarters building, includes four
fully-equipped television studios,
each with a full control room, a

master control room, six off-line
video editing suites, non-linear
digital editing facilities and four
classrooms for the television stu-
dents.
The audio wing has 16 prac-
tice suites, two radio stations,
a newsroom, a news studio with
wire services and audio feeds,
and a tapeless-editing/Digital
Audio Tape production room.
Wider corridors and better
sound-proofing were on the staff
and student wish lists for the au-
dio wing. They are a reality in
the new school.
The second floor of the new
school houses the expanded elec-
tronics technology school and its
electronics classrooms and labo-
ratories.
Better parking, upgraded com-
puter and phone systerhs and of-
fice space for more than 40 staff
members round out ..the new
school's features.
More than 7,000 students
have graduated from the Specs
Howard school. Nearly 700
alumni work for at least 150 em-
ployers in the Detroit metropol-
itan area.
Included on the local alumni
list are Joe Wade Formicola of
WXYT talk radio and Karen
Dalssandro of WYCD young
country. ❑

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