TO: Provost and Executive Vice President Jack Ivancevich
Vice President for Finance and Administration, James Hale

FROM: Ad Hoc Classroom Committee

DATE: October 10, 1996

RE: Recommendations

The Ad Hoc Classroom Committee consists of:

The committee (with the exception of Toby Tate who was called to a meeting) met on Friday, September 22, 1996 and walked through all of the large lecture rooms -- defined as those lecture rooms seating 100 or more students and listed on the general classroom inventory.

We assume that there will continue to be two separate pools of funds for the renovation and modernization of UH classrooms. Pool 1 will be in the budgets of the Physical Plant and will be used for such items as seating, painting, and carpeting. Pool 2 will be in the budgets of the Associate Vice President for Information Technology and will be spent on equipment used and, if possible, stored in the classrooms. Additional sources of funding can accelerate the plans outlined below.

A second assumption is that there will be coordination between these two offices to the extent to which coordination is feasible.

A third assumption is that the large lecture rooms (100 or more seats) have the highest priority for renovation. This reflects the high demand for these rooms and their high visibility -- especially among students who are new to the university.

 

Classroom Equipment

Most, but not all, of the 22 large lecture rooms have a permanently mounted data or video projector. This suggests that there is a demand for such equipment and IT should recommend a schedule of upgrading or replacement. Rooms without such equipment (such as 116 SR) should have a high priority for installation if there is sufficient demand.

At the present time UH has 5 computer projectors which can be reserved by faculty for use in smaller classrooms. A high priority should be given to acquisition of at least 5 more of these systems as soon as possible.

A modular projection control panel should be designed/adopted and installed in the large lecture rooms. Such a panel would make maintenance and support much easier in addition to making it easier for the faculty to use when they move from classroom to classroom.

A policy should be established addressing the issue of storing computers/notebooks in the large lecture rooms or in the smaller classrooms if there is reasonable security.

A project to distribute information about classrooms and the equipment available in each via the Internet is already underway. This will be of benefit to faculty who wish to use multimedia and Internet-based resources as integral parts of their courses but up until now have had no systematic way to identify those rooms that would be suitable.

Large Lecture Rooms

A total of 14 of the 22 large lecture rooms have theater style seating. The physical plant architect estimated that these seats should be replaced about every 12-15 years. It costs about $90,000 to replace cushions and backs of 600 theater style chairs.

The large lecture rooms on the first floor of Agnes Arnold are rather awkward. Similarly, room 202 Communications is a long rectangle and not a particularly desirable configuration. We recommend that UH study these (and other smaller, awkward classrooms) areas to determine if other configurations could be constructed. For example, if the walls separating 101, 104, 108, and 110 from adjoining rooms are not structural support walls then perhaps a larger, tiered room could be created.

A preliminary ranking of large lecture rooms by need for upgrading follows.

Room Seating

Assuming that the current level of funding available continues, funds left over after refurbishing the large classrooms and be used to take care of problems in the smaller classrooms. In addition, there are rooms like the Kiva in Farrish Hall which are on a college space inventory but are used by the UH community as well.

Although we were not charged by any office to undertake these analyses, we do so based on a collective belief that a systematic process is needed to address classrooms -- especially those that are on the general inventory.

A number of other groups on campus have interests in classrooms and they can be consulted as this proposal is evaluated. These include, but are not limited to, undergraduate council, the new instructional technologies committee and the teaching committee.