Building a community with the BUas HUB

But first, what is the HUB? 

The HUB is there to serve the entire BUas community – both students and staff – with entertaining and informing content that is related to their field of interest or study programme, without being a curricular requirement. Launched in 2020, it has rapidly grown its audience. The platform is powered by our Creative Business study programme. It offers online videos, blogs and articles, HUB magazine, live radio, podcasts and television shows. A great opportunity for our students to get ready for ‘the real media world’. 

But not only Creative Business students are involved. ’The HUB is open to all sorts of collaborations, with alumni and students and staff from all domains,’ Charlie says. ’The Creative Business students often train students from other programmes. For example, Leisure & Events Management student Maja Sobotta has started her own podcast "This is: K-POP" with the help of media students.’ 

’Also, we have several successful collaborations with companies. Such as productowner.nl that wanted to do a podcast. I helped facilitate this, together with our students that did the technical producing of the podcast.’  

’The HUB's primary goal is to be the campus entertainment network, but of course an important other goal is to help students get ready for a job in the media industry.’ 
 

Why is it important to have the BUas HUB? 

’Of course, the HUB is here to help educate Creative Business students about running and producing TV, radio and written content. But another important purpose is to create an outlet for the students. And a way to feel connected to their peers. A safe space in which they feel empowered to speak up and express themselves in a creative, critical way. The HUB helps grow the BUas community, together with our campus, BUas Clubs, our mascot BUZZ and the university experience as a whole,’ Charlie explains.  
 
’There are more and more cross-domain collaborations. Just the other day we had an urban designer in the radio show talking about landscape architecture. An initiative from our Built Environment programme. And during Purple Week last December, one of our staff members came on the show to share his personal experience with being a part of the LGBTQ+ community. He was being interviewed by two students from his own community.’ 

Mr HUB, Charlie Hicks 

Charlie started working at BUas almost ten years ago. He has been the HUB supervisor, or Mr HUB as we like to call him, since the beginning of 2020. Just before Covid-19 hit us. Charlie is the supervisor for radio; other lecturers are supervising the other components of the HUB. During the pandemic he kept the community feeling alive with his ‘Isolation Radio Show’. Two days a week he did shows with people’s requests and shout-outs. He made a lot of funny promo videos, so he quickly became the face of the HUB. 

’I have a background in radio and television, both as a news anchor and reporter. In 2005 I started teaching a course in broadcasting at the Northern Arizona University in the US. During that time there was already a collaboration between Breda University of Applied Sciences and Northern Arizona University, so that is how I came in contact with people from BUas,’ Charlie says. 

A few years later Charlie had left the university and had gotten back to radio. When a spot opened in the media department of BUas, Charlie was asked to come teach in the Netherlands. The rest, as they say, is history. 

What does the future look like for the HUB? 

Our students and Charlie will continue to work on expanding the reach of the HUB through video, radio, social media and more. The Campus Entertainment Network will be expanded with an option to play video games. Another great cross-domain collaboration with our Games department. An online space will also be created for all clubs where people have room to talk about and discuss various topics with one another.  

And if it is up to Charlie? ’The HUB will continue to grow with more user-generated content by all academies and interesting collaborations with our media industry partners.’  

Would you like to know more about the HUB, or would you like to talk to us about collaborating with us? For all questions, you can reach the HUB at [email protected] or go to hub.buas.nl.