Members of the media and guests were invited to tour the Mell Classroom addition to the Ralph Brown Draughon library.
The Mell Classroom facility, which began development in December 2015, is now more than 60 percent complete and is expected to be finished before the 2017 fall semester.
This 69,000-square-foot addition to RBD will house several study rooms, lecture halls, and state-of-the-art “active learning classrooms."
The tour, led by Assistant Director of Construction and Facilities Management Ben Chapman, started in front of the Westward facing entrance to the new facility.
Upon entry, the first thing one will notice is the fully preserved facade of RBD, letterhead and all.
At the top of the 65-foot-tall ceilings are large windows which allow natural light through, giving the facility a feeling of being outside, something Timothy Boosinger, provost and vice president of academic affairs, said will make the facility “a big hub on campus” and “the place to be."
The tour was then guided into one of the two lecture halls located on either side of the second floor. These rooms can seat approximately 160 students, and will provide them with a traditional lecture classroom experience. Also on this floor and the ones above it are multiple group study rooms, similar to those in RBD.
The new active learning classrooms will feature 10 wall-mounted monitors sitting behind glass, allowing students to write on top of what is on the screen with dry-erase markers. These classrooms will also feature completely mobile furniture, allowing professors to organize the seating however they see fit. Class sizes in these rooms will vary, as they can be split by a divider allowing for one class of 72 or two classes of 36.
Diane Boyd, director of Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, said she believes these classrooms will be the greatest addition to the Mell Street facility.
“If a professor decides that a lecture is the best plan for the day, the desks can be easily moved for that," Boyd said. "What we hope happens, though, is that students will be able to arrange themselves in small groups to solve problems collaboratively."
Boosinger said student success is the University's first priority.
“This is one of the steps to provide students with state-of-the-art, leading edge classrooms and learning environments," Boosinger said. "We like to set the standards for others. We hope other universities will see this facility and want to improve their own."
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