President Dr. Barry Corey speaks at the dedication of the Robert and Eleanor Bowman Missions Media Center on May 7, 2102. | Tyler Otte/THE CHIMES

The Cook School of Intercultural Studies celebrated the formation of a working partnership with the Far East Broadcasting Company Monday at Marshburn Hall with the opening of the Robert and Eleanor Bowman Missions Media Center.

President Barry Corey opened the dedication with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10:20 Monday morning. The ceremony signified the official opening of the lobby in Marshburn Hall, which was completed in summer 2011. The portico — which is 120 square feet of space — was combined with parts of Marshburn to form the lobby, faculty offices and the Robert and Eleanor Bowman Missions Media Center. The repurposing of the portico to a lobby has freed traffic patterns, added offices for faculty and allowed space for the Robert and Eleanor Bowman Missions Media Center.

New media center a response to program growth

The center contains radio equipment that has the capability to broadcast live content internationally in a professional setting. It was built to give ICS majors and minors a chance to benefit from a first-hand look at missions media. It will also give graduate students the chance to communicate with missionaries in the field and interview them for their dissertations, according to Doug Pennoyer, the chairman of the broadcasting company and dean of the Cook school of intercultural studies.

Pennoyer said the portico was converted in response to the expanding ICS program and the addition of the undergraduate anthropology major and minor.

“A second factor is that we just grew like crazy,” Pennoyer said.

Dedication symbolizes partnership with Far East Broadcasting Company

The ribbon cutting ceremony officially marked the opening and dedicating of the center, even though it has already been in use. The dedication also symbolized the partnering of Biola and the radio broadcasting company.

“At the core of Biola University’s mission is the conviction that we must respond to the Great Commission and create men and women of mind and character to be servants of Christ in cross-cultural educational training. FEBC’s legacy rings loud at this institution,” Corey said.

The media center is an actual recording studio, according to Alynne Mann Golding, the previous chairman of the board of FEBC. She explained that the the radio broadcasting company was founded almost 66 years ago, in 1945, by Robert Bowman. In 1948, he launched his first radio broadcast into China. Currently, the station broadcasts in 150 indigenous languages and has since merged with the Far East Broadcasting Association to cover more territory.

“[The] Robert and Eleanor Bowman Missions Media Center is designed to be a media lab. It will be a professional broadcast environment to give students the knowledge and the environment to use media as a tool to bring Christ to the world,” Corey said.

Pennoyer described the ceremony as a three-way win for FEBC, Biola and the kingdom of God, as this partnership will train students how to reach the world cross-culturally through the use of the media.