Northwestern Launches YouTube Channel

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University has established an institutional channel on YouTube that will showcase the University's academic offerings, fine arts programs, events and other information, University officials announced today.

YouTube is the leading online video community that allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos. The new Northwestern channel can be found on the web at: http://youtube.com/NorthwesternU.

"We're very excited about the opportunity to bring Northwestern's programming to a wider audience," said Bob Taylor, director of academic technologies. "Our relationship with YouTube will enable the University to reach audiences around the world and show the many faces of Northwestern."

The new channel includes lectures by Northwestern faculty on subjects ranging from litigation and tort reform to the physics of baseball. Opera lovers searching YouTube have already discovered videos of performances of several different operas by Northwestern School of Music students. And the site also includes videos featuring news and events from around campus.

Five separate destinations have been created on the Northwestern site: Academics, Research, Arts, News and Events. In addition, the University can create playlists for particular areas, such as for the University Library, individual schools or departments within the University, or other groups.

"YouTube is clearly a powerful and popular medium in today's communications world," said Alan Cubbage, vice president for university relations. "By making our content available via YouTube, it allows us to reach entirely different audiences than we would be able to do through other media."

Invited to be an early adopter of the YouTube education platform, Northwestern's presence on YouTube is in good company. The University of Southern California, the University of California-Berkeley and Vanderbilt University are among the growing number of higher-education institutions to have channels on YouTube.

The Northwestern channel is a joint effort of NUIT Academic Technologies and University Relations. Team leaders for the project were Harlan Wallach, Jon Fernandez and Chris Wallace from Academic Technologies and Brendan Cosgrove from University Relations.