Free Press photos by John Cross
Most of the audio-video equipment in Ostrander Auditorium has been replaced and is now state of the art. The only holdover is the motorized projection screen, which is the only such screen the auditorium has ever had.
In the new Ostrander, the smallest seats are just slightly smaller than the largest seats were before the renovation.
Imagine you’re a big whig at Minnesota State University and you’ve finally persuaded the ambassador of a very powerful European country to come to campus and deliver a powerful lecture to a captive audience.
And just when he gets up there and is ready to speak and regale the audience with the wisdom and brilliance of his award-winning career, the guy in row 12, seat 5 leans a little to the right, which unleashes an ear-piercing squeak that bounces off the walls and echoes enough to make the distinguished guest pause and wonder what kind of place this Minnesota State University is that it lets its auditorium seats get so obnoxious.
That’s fiction. But there’s nothing made up about the squeak factor in those seats, a fact that had made MSU’s Ostrander Auditorium rather infamous as a venue for high-profile events.
Today, however, those seats are long gone, and the place has transformed into a fresh, gleaming-new space for lecturers, musicians and films.
“That’s kind of why we did this,” says Laurie Woodward, the Centennial Student Union director who was pleased to get rid of those seats and give one of the campus’ most important rooms a makeover.
The impression hasn’t been the best in recent years. Today, however? The difference is, to say the least, astounding.
Gone are those seats. Gone is the gloom. Gone is the “cattle ramp” on the side that satisfied Americans with Disabilities Act requirements but did so in a very metallic and noisy way.
Instead, the room is distinguished by bigger seats, shiny new hardwood floors on the stage, decorative walls that flank the stage that hold up blueish-purple flames — the MSU logo — that glow when the lights are off.
For the complete Free Press story, go to http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_309000650.html.
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