BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – On Sunday, Nov. 20, the Illinois Wesleyan Student Senate approved funding for upgrades to the Hansen Student Center. The majority of the funds will go toward new stage lighting equipment, including new, more sustainable, LED fixtures. With the new LED lighting, 85 percent more energy will be conserved, the plastic of the fixtures will not need to be replaced and fewer bulbs will need to be changed.
The new upgrades will improve lighting for events held at the student center, largely benefiting student organizations, such as Dance Cohesion and the Musical Theater Society, both of which rely heavily on lighting technology for their respective shows. Senior physics major and Hispanic studies minor Derrick Rohl notes the versatility of the new fixtures. “This technology allows us to produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 million colors with each fixture. This will give the crew and performers a new degree of creativity for working events at Hansen,” he said. Rohl has worked on the project alongside sophomore theater design/technology major Matt Hohmann.
According to Colin Stewart, director of student activities and leadership programs, Rohl and Hohmann have invested a great amount of time on the lighting project from the very beginning. Their tasks have involved a great deal of technical work, including finding available circuits and working with Physical Plant to determine the amount of power and electric currents necessary for the system, as well as making sure the project stays on budget. Stewart is excited to see students like Rohl and Hohmann, as well as members of the Student Senate who passed the funding, working for the benefit of their peers