As the Spring 2016 term closes, we celebrate another great year of creative and scholarly pursuits by our team, the faculty who call upon us, and, most of all, the students whose classes and projects often take shape in our labs and studios, including:
- Developing a virtual walking tour of Ancient Rome in Chicago, including in-depth video explorations of various sites
- Learning how to research and author online maps to chart Shakespeare’s Circuits around the globe
- Honing skills to ‘write’ audio essays, including one on Tom Dooley which won the History Department’s annual Joseph Barton Essay Award
- Adding 84 new entries to the WildWords dictionary
- Taking one of the 1,965 online language placement tests processed this year
- Being in a group of 597 fellow students who perfected and evaluated their language pronunciation using DiLL in our computer classrooms
These experiences are part of the momentum we carry forward as we look ahead to our return to Kresge Hall. There, we will kick off the 2016-2017 academic year with great excitement in a brand-new space, once again strategically placed at the heart of language instruction and Humanities education in Weinberg College.
An early rendering of the main activity space, including enclosed collaboration suites.
Our new Space: an Overview
Building on our existing portfolio of services, we expect our new space to facilitate new interactions and connections, offer more robust capacity for multimedia creation, and encourage exploration of new models for teaching and learning. From our main activity space on the second floor of Kresge, we will offer:
- Equipment Checkout Counter
- Independent Learning Carrels
- A Project Nook (eventually offering makerspace tools)
- Collaboration Booths for small group activities
- Collaboration Suites for enclosed group activities (tutuoring, project work, etc.)
We’ve recognized the importance of rooms that can offer increased sound isolation and access to studio recording tools and, down the hall, we will have new studio spaces that can be reserved for use by specific courses:
- 2 Digital Media Editing Suites (1-2 people)
- 1 Larger Editing Studio (small groups)
Our laboratory classrooms have also received a significant technology boost, each boasting high-definition, high-fidelity 4K projection and presentation capabilities, attention to sound and acoustics, as well as video conferencing equipment that permits outside audiences to participate in the local classroom discussion. Both classrooms will enable digitally-enhanced pedagogies, but with a slightly different focus and layout:
- A digitally augmented structured classroom — suitable for many language and evaluative activities
- A content-creation classroom — powerful tools at every seat, space for faculty to circulate and guide, and space to collect for group critique and review.
Interim Summer Operations
Getting ready for our new space requires significant preparation and, as such, we will follow a significantly reduced operating schedule for Summer Session before closing completely on August 13. As we schedule the breakdown of our existing equipment and classroom spaces, we will continue to work directly with each summer program faculty member to ensure that needs are met.
October Open House — Save the Date!
In celebration of our “homecoming” to Kresge, we plan to host a multi-day open house event spanning Thursday, October 13, and Friday, October 14, just prior to Northwestern’s official homecoming week. On Thursday afternoon, we will open up our spaces to offer a special sneak-peak those who might not be able to make the more formal Friday afternoon event. Stay tuned for additional details!