To: John Butler, Chair, Classrooms Committee

From: Rosalie F. Maddocks, Chair, Subcommittee 3

Date: February 27, 1999

Compiled below are the responses received from two colleges (in addition to their answers to the survey questions) and three departments of HFAC.

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:22:58 -0500

>The Art Department uses special purpose classrooms assigned to the department for its studio classes. However, for our art history classes, particularly the large freshman survey classes, we rely on general purpose classrooms. Before 1:00pm on a daily basis, we share Dudley Hall, 122 Fine Arts Building with the School of Music. After that time, we are at the mercy of classrooms for which other colleges/departments have "dibs."

>

>Our freshman art history courses (ARTH 1380 and 1381) are part of the current core, and will be part of the new core. We anticipate that demand will remain constant, or perhaps increase. Each semester, we schedule 2 to 3 large afternoon suveys of 160 quota each. The School of Music would like to gain control of Dudley Hall (122 FA) even earlier than 1:00 pm each day due to their high demand for recitals, practice time,etc. When the Art Department relies on general purpose classrooms, such as the Melcher lecture halls and Engineering Lecture D-2, we face continuous problems due to the need for AV equipment needed for each class meeting (to show slides of the images under discussion). A minimum standard is two 35 mm slide projectors with large screens that can show the two images side by side for comparative instruction. Our faculty encounter burned out projector bulbs, glowing lights on the screens, inappropriate focus distances, and when there is a sudden break-down, no one in these buildings has a role to play in getting things fixed. A few semesters ago, an art history faculty member was told that the projectors were to be removed from the Melcher lecture rooms since the business professors did not use them! This is just an example of the "chancey" nature of using general purpose lecture rooms when specialized equipment is needed. Of course, we work with Media Services to request the projectors and report needed repairs, but that is not the same as having someone in the building who help handle immediate problems.

>

> As for availability of these large lecture rooms, we have had to change the days/times of classes during the scheduling process because no suitable room was available at the preferred time. In fact, in the morning timeband, we would like another large room 10-11:30 TTH since this is typically the time Music uses 122 FA so we cannot schedule an art history class then (we realize of course this is "prime time).

>

>Looking to the future, Art's visual resources curator and some of our art historians are moving toward electronic imaging technology to support art history instruction. We would support the "electronic classroom" technology both for the large lecture halls and the mid-size classrooms. However, this new technology raises issues of not only maintenance but security in general purpose "turf." Our own experience in the few present classrooms we "control" is that we look after the A-V equipment and general condition of the room much more quickly and efficiently in our own territory. Even with this concern, we would support secure audio-visual kiosks and projection rooms to be built in several general purpose rooms like 150 Melcher and Engineering Lecture D-2. They could have a wide variety of imaging and audio capabilities. There is no reason for the present decrepit and embarrassing condition of these rooms and others like them.

>

>We would be willing to discuss our needs and concerns further with you and

>the committee. Good luck with this tremendous undertaking!

>

>Jack Hanna, Interim Chair, Art Department

>Pat Deeves, Assistant Director, Art Department

>I am the Chair of the Dept of Communication Disorders..Our issue is Cameron 101 for our large undergraduate classes. I'll answer the questions with respect to this classroom. If you need more information, please let me know.

>

>1) Cameron 101

>2) The problem we have is that Food and nutrition has first dibs on the room; we get the left overs..So there is a problem for us scheduling our classes. So, we don't have enough gen purp classrooms; but the faculty want to be close to their offices because of transporting materials etc..

>3) We mainly need a large lecture room for three classes a semester

>4) We like to schedule these classes back to back or as close as possible so that we willnot inconvenience students. We try for the mornings, MWF

>5) The availability/nonavailability strongly impacts: preferences of faculty and convenience of students (most important, in my opinion). We always have to change times so we can use the room.

>6) I don't think availabily affects course content etc..

>7) The availability negatively affects the students, who work and want tight schedules that we cannot always offer them. It alo influences the morale of the students.

>8) I don't think our needs will change; there is a growing need for speech-lang pathologists. It will continue

>9) Sorry, I don't know what would be a policy...we have a modular building and could add an extra module for a large classroom..however it would cost 116,000 dollars....dream on....

>10) I don't know where the space has gone. I'm new (relatively) on campus.

>11) no, we always reschedule to get the room we need.

>

>hope this was helpful...

Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:21:23 -0500

1. Yes, Philosophy uses general purpose rooms

3. We have trouble finding rooms that hold over 100 students. (we have one "assigned" to us that holds 90 something)

5. We want to teach large classes because of student demand and because it helps us meet workload requirements.

10. I know we used to have three rooms assigned to us. Now we have two; and the one we lost was a great one. It was turned into offices for Mexican American Studies.

11. We have vey large demand for Phil 2310, a course we teach that Business requires. We can fill large rooms (150-250) almost any time, and, since we have few instructors to spare to teach the course, it is most efficiently done by having one teacher teach in a large room. But these are hard to come up with.

Bill Nelson

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 16:27:48 -0600

From: Lawrence Curry <LCurry@UH.EDU>

You already have information from Dean Zamora about her proposal to convert the five ground-floor classroom in AH for computer use. If approved, as I understand it, that would free up space in Law Hall (Scholars' Community), Heine (English writing lab), and AH (History computer room) for general

purpose use, if the spaces are modified. I won't say any more about that proposal here.

Dean Zamora also asked me to tell you again that UH needs a new general purpose classroom building.

From: John Butler <jbutler@UH.EDU>

I talked with John Hardy about NSM Classrooms. In general we have few up front problems. Years ago Glenn Aumann got departments to agree to offer the same course at the same time at the same place. This is a respected tradition. [However, it had lead to an under utilization of 116, for example]

Our problems come in after the semester started .... rooms for tutorials, taking examinations, holding seminars. We try and make 634 available for seminars but that doesn't seem to capture everyone.

We need more data projection equipment and laptops.