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SPA’s
Lupoli fluent in computer language
Nestled
in the basement in the School of Public Affairs’ Ward
Circle Building is Jeremy Lupoli’s office.
While
the space is packed with a plethora of computer equipment
and high-tech gadgets galore, there’s not a window to
be found—which is why Lupoli, SPA webmaster, has adorned
his office with posters of famous paintings depicting scenes
looking out a window. Works from Matisse, Renoir, Picasso,
and others line Lupoli’s walls, making his basement hideaway
feel more comfortable than cave-like.
“I’d
have it no other way . . . quiet and cozy,” he said,
with the gentle hum of computers in the background.
Given
his extensive knowledge of computer systems, one might assume
Lupoli, who founded a Web design company before coming to
AU, spent years in school mastering his craft—but that’s
not the case.
“I
tutored calculus at a community college, but nobody at the
community college took calculus,” said Lupoli, who’s
a PhD student in political science at AU. “So I taught
myself computer languages when I was bored.”
In
addition to building and maintaining Web sites for nearly
every department in SPA, Lupoli is responsible for uploading
video of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies’
(CCPS) forums onto the Web. Currently, there are more than
50 videos online at www.american.edu/ccps/video.html. Though
the videos are available to the general public, they’re
particularly popular with students who use them for research
and with professors who incorporate them into their lesson
plans.
Lupoli
said he’s tasked with getting the forums on the Web,
usually within one day of the event, in Windows Media and
Real Media formats for both slow and high-speed connections.
It’s “time consuming, but not a lot of work,”
he said, estimating that it takes about 11 hours to format
two hours of tape. “Essentially, I just have to make
sure I’m around to start and stop the tape,” Lupoli
said with a laugh.
Getting
streaming video of the forums—which include discussions
of ethics, advocacy, campaign finance reform, and more—online
was a top priority when Lupoli was hired in October 2000.
The brainchild of CCPS director James Thurber, webstreaming
was “an exciting challenge” for Lupoli, who said
he’d never done anything like it before coming to AU.
“It was a learning process,” said Lupoli, adding
that, hundreds of hours worth of video later, he’s got
the process down.
“But
as far as I know, we’re the only ones on campus doing
this. And that’s pretty exciting.” —AF
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