SCOLA (TV service)

SCOLA is a non-profit educational organization that receives and re-transmits television programming from 120 countries around the world in 80 native languages. These programs are available via satellite, cable TV and the internet, reaching 450 colleges and universities, 6,000 schools and 55 city cable systems.

Origins

Reverend Leland Lubbers,SJ, a Jesuit priest and art professor, started SCOLA on the campus of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska in August 1981. While attending the first national exposition of homemade satellite dishes, Lubbers was inspired after witnessing satellite receivers delivering broadcasts from Europe. Believing that this new technology could be used to bring the world closer together, Lubbers built a $750 satellite receiver in a garage on the Creighton campus. A year later, Lubbers and a student crew wired the campus for closed circuit cable television which included satellite broadcasts from France and Mexico. The single channel was named "Jay TV" (after the Creighton University mascot, the Bluejays). With the help of Francis Lajba (current SCOLA CEO and president), Lubbers soon developed a computer program that tracked Soviet satellites which delivered news broadcasts in Russian.

In 1992, SCOLA started broadcasting on the local cable service.

In 1993, SCOLA relocated to an area east of McClelland, Iowa. This 13.5 acre (55,000 m²) plot was dubbed the "SCOLA Antenna Farm."

Sadly, on Friday June 27, 2008 Lee Lubbers left this Earth for further adventures. Always glorious, Lee donated his body to the Creighton Medical Center for Scientific Research.

Today

Currently SCOLA operates 24 hours a day on six channels and employs a staff of 38 employees. The SCOLA Antenna Farm contains 29 satellite dishes with an annual budget of $1.5 million. SCOLA offers all of its content through its website which can be viewed online or downloaded.

World TV Online, International Radio, People and Places, Specialized Word Video Search, Digital Archive,Insta-Class Service, Foreign Text, and "On the Street" Videos are currently SCOLA Online Services with others being planned.

The online Insta-Class Service provides weekly study guides for teachers to use in the classroom.

Since 1995, an exchange program with China Yellow River Television based in Taiyuan, China has sent Chinese anchors to America to broadcast Chinese news back to China using SCOLA's Iowa station. Colleges and universities, K-12 schools, cable systems and individuals as well as government language schools subscribe to SCOLA seeing the benefits of learning a foreign language by full immersion via satellite broadcasts and via the World Wide Web.

Origins of the name

SCOLA is a derivation of the word "school" in many languages -- the name does not have any acronymical meaning. SCOLA was given a meaning, as they were always being asked what the initials stood for. Father Lubbers, being quick-witted, stated "Satellite Communications for Learning Associated".

Channels offered by SCOLA

* SCOLA Channel One --Primarily programming from Europe with some additional countries. Considered to be the main channel, as it is the channel carried most by cable systems that offer SCOLA.

* SCOLA Channel Two -- Programming from Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries.

* SCOLA Channel Three (aka The China Channel) -- A Mandarin Chinese-language channel.

* SCOLA Channel Four -- Television from Asia, including Asia Minor.

* SCOLA Channel Five -- Programming from Africa.

* SCOLA Channel Six -- Television programs from the Middle East.

External links

* [http://www.scola.org/ SCOLA homepage]
* [http://scolastory.livejournal.com/ Scolastory: Rev. Lubber's blog]