Tuesday, May 15, 2001

WILMINGTON, NC – Environmental discoveries made by faculty and students at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington will soon have a worldwide audience as a result of a partnership with Ecology Communications formalized this spring.

The multi-tiered entrepreneurial partnership was announced today by UNCW Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs John Cavanaugh and founder and President of Ecology Communications Eric McLamb. Mr. McLamb, a 1978 graduate of UNC Wilmington with a bachelor’s degree in English, is also a former vice president of Discovery Communications, Inc.

“This strategic partnership will allow Ecology Communications to develop and package ecology-related content from UNC Wilmington research programs for distribution to a broad-based worldwide audience through television, Internet video streaming, and other multimedia platforms,” said Dr. Cavanaugh.

He noted that UNCW has two basic goals for this partnership: to obtain greater visibility and public awareness of the work being done by students and faculty researchers, particularly in the fields of marine and environmental science, and to generate revenue via its new state-of-the-art post-production facility.

“This is the first auxiliary service ever implemented within the Division for Academic Affairs,” Dr. Cavanaugh said. “UNC Wilmington will provide Ecology Communications access to interview and tape scientists while they are doing their research. In turn, Ecology Communications will produce and disseminate high quality television documentaries and other Web programming for audiences around the world, especially middle and high school teachers and their students.”

Revenue to UNCW will be generated in large part by Ecology Communications’ paying standard rates to complete its post-production work at the new facility. UNCW also will share in the profits from programs produced in collaboration with the university. University of North Carolina President Molly Corbett Broad has encouraged all 16 of the UNC system campuses to seek opportunities to enhance revenue through innovative partnering with business and industry.

Ecology Communications President McLamb said the relationship sets into place a “perpetual circle of support that continues to benefit the efforts of both parties without straying from their primary tasks. In essence, both parties are combining complementary assets in a progressive business model that is mutually beneficial,” he said.

Mr. McLamb explained that UNCW and Ecology Communications will work together to identify content that is beneficial for video production as well as to written and other graphic usage on the Internet, video support, and related areas. Ecology will distribute this content on television, in worldwide syndication, and on the Internet at www.ecology.com with UNCW credit and co-branding.

“This provides Ecology with authoritative content and UNCW with significantly expanded outreach support,” he said. In addition, with the establishment of the professional post-production facility, it will provide on-campus academic support for students to experience world-class production and to learn and participate in the process.

An added benefit of the arrangement will be to faculty when they apply for grants. “Ecology Communications can work closely with faculty to help provide significant outreach support for their research to have a positive impact on a broad, but well-defined, audience or user group. Ecology’s content normally targets middle through post-secondary school students and the life-long learner. The scientific community is also targeted as appropriate, primarily through Internet coverage,” Mr. McLamb said.

“This new partnership with Ecology Communications is a wonderful teaching opportunity for our faculty in the sciences, as well as an exciting learning opportunity for our students in Communication Studies and in Film Studies,” said Dr. Jo Ann Seiple, dean of the UNCW College of Arts and Sciences. “The partnership will enable our educational programs to achieve a level of public outreach never possible to us before and give our own undergraduate students valuable experience with state-of-the-art technology used in video production for a variety of media.

“Given the dwindling state funding to support public universities, partnerships like this one are becoming increasingly important to the fulfillment of our dual mission to provide our students with a high-quality undergraduate education and to provide public access to our educational programs. I’m very grateful to Ecology Communications for extending this opportunity to UNC Wilmington, and I know that it will benefit, in turn, from working with our excellent faculty and students.”

In addition to partnering with UNC Wilmington, Ecology Communications has established ecologically related collaborations with a number of other institutions and related educational organizations to provide support in authoritative content development, production, and educational outreach. Among those are the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Environmental Initiatives.

Ecology Communications started working with UNC Wilmington last summer when the NOAA National Undersea Research Center at UNCW organized the deep-sea exploration of the Gulf of Mexico. This resulted in Ecology Communications’ major production titled Life on the Edge: The Deep Sea Gulf and extensive coverage of the mission on its Website, www.ecology.com.

For additional information, Dr. Cavanaugh can be reached at 910/962-3389 or cavanaugh@uncwil.edu; Mr. McLamb can be reached at 410/465-0480 or EricMcLamb@prodigy.net.