NE science faculty have mixed feelings about the new science building being built on their campus.
The new building will house labs while the old buildings will be renovated into classroom spaces.
One point of conflict lies in the implementation of shared office spaces. These “faculty neighborhoods” will get rid of private offices, which has raised concerns among some instructors, including chemistry professor Susan Patrick.
“I don’t like it. That’s one of the things I’m most nervous about because it just feels like students will be less likely to come to see you,” Patrick said.
These neighborhoods require students to make appointments to speak with professors. If a professor wishes to meet with a student privately, they must go into a “focus room,” which does not allow for personalization.
Patrick often uses the books in her office to help students or she might look something up on her computer. With the neighborhood model, she would have to go back to her shared office to grab materials.
“I won’t have what I need,” she said. “I’m afraid that that’s going to be a huge issue.”
NE physics professor Raymond Benge echoed the sentiment. He recalled the issues his colleagues at SE Campus faced when the neighborhoods were situated on their campus.
“You can’t just shut the office door and work on things, and so they’re complaining that their productivity has drastically dropped off,” he said. “Their interaction with students has dropped off because people can’t just walk up and say, ‘Hey, can I speak to you?’ because they’re locked up behind doors.”
NE biology professor Lara Kingeter said she wants to serve students in the best way she can and feels the shared office spaces could make that harder.
“It might make students more reluctant to seek us out if they know that they are in a more public setting than a faculty office space,” she said.
Aside from the shared office spaces, Kingeter said she is excited about the new building because labs are integral to her teaching model.
The current labs are not optimal, according to Patrick, who also relies on labs for chemistry. She said the labs have problems with equipment, including sinks, drawers and drains.
“The labs need to be gutted, basically,” she said. The new labs plan to implement pods
or clusters instead of the long rows of benches of the current setup.
Kingeter said this will allow instructors to increase interactivity in their classrooms.
“It will make it easier for the instructor to get to every student and give them that attention and that feedback. So we’re very excited from that perspective,” she said.
Kingeter also said having updated lab equipment is essential.
“We want to be able to present [students] with the opportunity to interact with instruments and perform experiments that are more relevant to what’s happening today in the field,” she said. “So just having that space, having that additional capacity, is going to help us advance our curriculum.”
Additionally, the new labs will offer more space for biology, which means they will be able to offer more classes.
However, Benge said the lab setup for his subject, physics, is adequate and he is not happy about being forced to move to new facilities.
“Physics and geology, we’re happy with the labs that we got,” he said. “It might be kind of nice to have new furniture and so forth, but that’s a very small thing. … We’d be perfectly happy to build it as a chemistry, biology building, and then leave us where we’re at.”
Geoscience professor Kevin Barrett is in the same boat. He said the current lab setup is perfect for what they do. However, the new building will house a new computational lab which could help enhance some geoscience classes, and some physics classes.
Barrett also mentioned that the construction of the new building is avoiding taking up too much green space.
“Whenever you’re putting a building on green space, it can become an issue with flooding and runoff pollution,” he said. “They’re trying to make it as small of a footprint in that area as possible, and they’re leaving some of the existing trees.”
NW Campus had a new science building built on their campus which came with some drawbacks.
NE Campus faculty are in communication with them so they can avoid similar problems in their new building. Alexandar Bauman, learning lab manager on NW Campus, said the cabinets were
placed too high in the labs and the faculty neighborhoods were not what people wanted.
“They didn’t really fix any issues and they introduced more issues,” he said.
There were some safety concerns such as an issue with contaminated water because the water lines were not flushed properly, which created problems at the safety eye wash as well as concerns about glass panes that didn’t allow room to hide in the case of an active shooter.
“Both of those issues have been addressed,” he said. “It’s still not as safe as the old building.”
Baumann said the experience was not as positive as it should be, but the faculty were able to get used to it.
“We found ultimately that the functionality remains and students are able to learn,” he said. “We just had to pivot.”
Baumann urged NE Campus science faculty to push for changes.
“There are people who care who are working to solve the problems,” he said.
Kingeter said it’s going to be a big challenge for faculty to move to the new building. She said she understands the diversity of opinion regarding the change.
“[We should] work together to come to some common ground and make sure that everybody’s needs are being considered and addressed as best as possible,” she said.
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