Five departments stand to lose their televised programs if the University does not renew its contract with Time Warner Cable in August 2011.

A non-renewal would leave BGSU news station BG24, the foreign language, science, classical music and arts and theatre and film departments without a channel for their televised programs. Off-campus senator Scott Bilbrey brought the issue up at the Undergraduate Student Government meeting Monday night and said the decision must be given to Time Warner in August 2011 even though the contract ends in 2012.

“There are three options right now,” Bilbrey said. “One, they can renew the contract and everything stays the same. Two, they could end the contract and lose channel 6, which means those departments will not be able to broadcast.”

Bilbrey said the University could also decide to either sign a contract with a new cable provider or attempt to create their own station.

Under their Time Warner contract, the University has use of cable channel 6 and is allowed to use it for non-commercial, informational and educational programs like BG24, according to the WBGU-PBS television station Web site.

Mike Paulus, director of University Dining Services, also spoke at the USG meeting. He presented dining services’ plans for renovations of old dining sites and construction of new sites on campus. The plans propose to build a new dining facility where the current McDonald facility is and either renovate or replace the dining center at Commons.

“It’s about building and designing correctly the first time to serve your needs,” Paulus said.

Other focal points of the proposal include creating a more comfortable atmosphere for students to remind them of home life, refreshing menus and getting the students more engaged in dining services.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to know what’s going into your food?” Paulus asked. “We want to bring the culinarians and the food prep to the front where students can see their food being made.”

Paulus also described plans to get students more involved by offering cooking classes in a new mini teaching kitchen that would be a feature of the new dining facility in McDonald.