Attending: Rebecca Stuhr, Christopher McKee, Bill Francis, Ivan Perry, Lee Sharpe, Jon Chenette, Jim Swartz, Jerry Adams, Tyler Roberts, Marci Sortor

Consultants:

Dennis Vovos (Lead Designer, Holabird & Root) Ernie Wagner (Programmer, Holabird & Root) Rick Heinz (Laboratory Planner, Research Facilities Design)

Our classroom space is dysfunctional. Can we reconfigure without having to build new facilities?

Marci distributed a draft of a proposal for ARH/Carnegie renovation.

Jerry distributed a document of square footage and seat capacity of classrooms. Also a frequency-of-use graph.

Some rooms are not a good size or configuration to be used as frequently. Most popular rooms hold 25-35 seats.
Issues: windows
Angled walls
Location of room (some faculty unwilling to walk to another building-Science and Bucksbaum, for example, though Bucksbaum is beginning to be used more often.)

Can faculty take tours of classrooms to see what is available? Jerry is willing to lead if tours are arranged.

The question was raised that if a faculty person configures a room for a class in the morning and wants the same configuration for a later class, how can the setup be preserved? At present, the intervening time is blocked out as being scheduled.

Would it be productive to ask faculty what configuration would be best for their classes and then compare that to what we currently have available in order to see what surpluses/deficiencies we have? No resolution at this time.

Most popular rooms contain side-arm (tablet) chairs. Second most popular contain tables. Tiered rooms with fixed seating are very unpopular. Technology needs are not an issue at present.
-The question was raised as to how the college would know when enough equipment is enough. Also, is the college focusing on what the college actually wants? Some feedback mechanism needs to be devised. No resolution.

The question was raised concerning a wireless network. Is it possible?
Issues: Who will maintain equipment?
Who will be responsible for checking out equipment?
-The wireless network will be experimented with soon.

The Registrar's Office would like rooms at 60% occupancy to allow for scheduling flexibility. The Dean's Office would like occupancy at 80% for greater resource efficiency (custodial, heating/cooling, etc).

Faculty should channel comments about specific rooms to Jerry.

Discussion about offering faculty a choice of room configurations to choose from rather than asking for a specific suggested room.

We need to consider seat occupancy rather than just room occupancy. Seating occupancy should be 60-80% of actual room capacity to be comfortable.

The question was posed: How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?
-Look at list of top 10 used and least used rooms and find out why they are favored or avoided.

Rooms dedicated to specific departments (Biology and Chemistry, for example), sometimes pose a problem with scheduling.

Email ideas, suggestions, etc., about classroom use to Helen Scott or Jim Swartz.

Adjourned

Respectfully submitted,
Terri Phipps