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What do you get when you combine undergraduate degrees in math and computer science; master’s degrees in new media; lots of professional experience in technology, music recording and web design; and two decades in the punk music scene? You get the husband-and-wife team of Rose Marshack and Rick Valentin, assistant professors and passionate advocates for the do-it-yourself approach to expressing creativity through technology.

Marshack, who teaches music business and arts technology in the School of Music, and Valentin, who teaches arts technology classes in web design, video and multimedia production in the School of Art, met while studying computer science at the University of Illinois.  Both musicians, they founded the punk band Poster Children and have released more than a dozen albums of original music. They also pursued careers in computer programming and web design and ran an independent record label and a multimedia company before becoming faculty members at Illinois State.    

Marshack and Valentin were early adopters of blogging and podcasting in the mid and late 1990s; chronologically not all that long ago, but still making them pioneers in the field.  The podcasts began as recorded commentaries by Marshack, Valentin and other Poster Children band members. “The recordings – we didn’t even call them podcasts at the time – were like sitting in on an extended conversation with the band in a small tour van, only without the smell,” joked Valentin. “We would post them online and they were a great way to keep people up-to-date about what was happening with the band.”

Marshack noted that the early podcasts and band tour reports that she turned into an ongoing blog also served a larger purpose.  “It’s always been about teaching,” she said. “We wanted to show people that they could create their own websites, record their own podcasts and start their own blogs to reach an audience.” 

The days of touring with Poster Children are on hold, but the two continue to produce their free-wheeling, Radio Zero podcasts, which cover a wide range of topics including music, movies, technology and parenting their two young children.  Their easy rapport on the podcasts carries over into their roles as professors as they both speak about the teaching purpose in all their projects – right down to the name of their band. “As the Poster Children, we’ve always tried to serve as examples with an ‘if we can do it, so can you’ message,” Valentin said. 

Having computer science backgrounds certainly gave the two an advantage in the early days of blogging, podcasting and independent digital music recording – back when the process was a bit more cumbersome. However, the technology evolved rapidly, allowing more and more people to create an online presence, record their own music or self-publish. The punk rock ethos of creativity and independence continues to flow through their work and influences their teaching.   

“Punk rock has always been about doing things the way that you want do to them,” said Marshack. “We want our students to realize that things like programming, web design and music recording are not just in the hands of the professionals. It’s all part of a larger community that is open to everyone.”

Valentin is quick to point out that the hybrid approach to art and technology is exciting and plays to the strengths and life experiences of today’s students. “There used to be a huge gulf between computer science and art,” he said. “Students today take a more hybrid approach to those subjects because computers have always been a part of their lives. In the arts technology program, we stress creativity and look at bigger themes and concepts about how art and technology fit together. We also teach transferable skills for working with technology that’s constantly evolving.”

Marshack and Valentin also want students to feel they have a choice in how they use technology and that they do not have to be limited by corporate decisions about the control and use of technology and media. Both of them hold up the music industry as a prime example. “Music is a force for change and there is a real spirit of community involvement in the field these days,” said Valentin.

Students in Marshack’s music business class are getting a taste of that community effort this semester as they help to run Stu Records, an independent record label created by Illinois State’s Music Business Organization, a registered student organization. The record label has almost no overhead costs apart from a yearly fee for an Internet domain name. Students are making the artist and repertoire decisions, planning marketing strategies and getting hands-on experience with digital music recording at a studio located in the basement of Waiting Room Records in Normal. The label has already released one single, with more to come.   

At first, many of Marshack’s students were surprised that someone could actually start their own record label and not be part of a larger business structure. “The technology today allows for small start-ups like this,” she said. “It’s really hard to learn about the music business from books. Stu Records is a great teaching tool because students are involved with all aspects of the project. That’s how we learned to do it.”