"From Udder to Cone: The MSU Dairy Store" was Pete Collman's favorite edition of MSU UpClose, a weekly radio talk show broadcast Thursdays at 7 p.m. on Impact WDBM-FM, MSU's student radio station. Collman, news and sports director at Impact, had a vision of MSU UpClose as a hard news talk show. "Due to the audience at Impact (16 to 22 years old), it's just a little to the right of "Hard Copy,'" he said.
Other recent shows have focused on the meningicoccal scare and the cult suicides in California. "We try to sneak in the hard stuff -- give the audience an education," said Collman.
Directing sports and news at Impact is just one of Collman's three jobs in addition to his studies. He is a telecommunications graduate student from the Washington, D.C., area. He graduated last May with a bachelor's degree in journalism from Marshall University, a small West Virginia school.
"The access to equipment and certain professors," were what drew Collman to MSU's telecommunications program, ranked as one of the top in the country.
When he arrived in Lansing, Collman approached the Capital Area Center for Independent Living with his resume. The center asked if he'd be interested in producing a cable program to reach out to people in the Lansing area. Collman eagerly accepted the challenge. He read everything he could find on TV production and put together a show called "Independent Today." The newsmagazine format of the 30-minute show follows a theme, and is seen in five communities throughout the state.
One of the biggest drawbacks to MSU, said Collman, is the lack of a disabled athletic program. Collman founded a wheelchair basketball team in West Virginia and would like to start a similar program here.
"It could draw more people with disabilities to MSU," he said. He envisions a program that would offer a coach, sports wheelchairs, equipment and court time, "almost like a varsity sport."
"I consider it an outreach program to get people from around the state to come to MSU," Collman said.
While advocacy, three jobs and graduate studies don't leave much time for anything else, Collman enjoys the variety MSU and the Lansing area offer.
"Entertainment is coming home to take a nap on the couch," said Collman, who admits he enjoys attending Lugnuts games, drawing and painting in his rare free time.
One of the biggest challenges Collman said he faced after moving north was the weather.
Weather was No. 1," he said, "but a really close No. 1 after that was dealing with some of the mentality."
In the South, Collman said, people are friendly and will approach someone and talk. "Here, people stay to themselves and you have to work a liitle harder," he said.
Collman likes the accessibility of MSU's campus. "At other schools, you're on your own," he said. "Here, that's not the case."
He especially likes MSU's transportation system. "It's fantastic; MSU, it's a city, a huge thing to get used to."
Collman plans to move on next May. "I'm going to put a map of the United States on the wall and close my eyes and pick out five places where I'll send my resume," he said. His ideal job would be producing documentaries for TV, similar to National Geographic or A&E's Biography series.
"You don't see many people with disabilities in the broadcasting industry," Collman said. Visibility is important, he believes, in encouraging other people with disabilities to engage with life.
"People take themselves way too seriously and need to relax," he said. "There's a time to be militant and a time to have fun. It's not all gloom and doom."