Release date: Dec. 7, 2005
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Emory Revamps, Revs Up Campus Computer Lab

Three years ago, Emory gutted its old lab concept – a fluorescent–lit cubicle farm – and replaced it with a high–tech space designed specifically for faculty/student interaction and dedicated to group academic activity. More of a "learning commons" than a lab to crank out a paper, the space is sleek and contemporary with creative lighting, moveable furniture, areas for individual or group work, and a café and art gallery in back.

“Our old lab was focused on individual students sitting at individual machines,” says Kim Braxton, director of the Center at Cox Hall. “This space is all about collaboration – students working together inside and outside of class. Access to the interactive technologies and collaborative spaces found in the center has allowed faculty to expand what they can do within the context of their instruction and allowed students to be more creative in their assignments. The idea of flexible, collaborative space centered around teaching and learning is a trend we're beginning to see applied in many ways."

The center is one of only a few such spaces in the country, and the most exceptional in its dedication to provide the newest technologies directly to the students, says Alan Cattier, director of academic technologies at Emory. Most notable outside of Emory is Stanford's Wallenberg Hall, which is more formally a teaching and research space, he says.

"This is what the student computing lab of the future looks like. After hearing from students and faculty about what they wanted, we decided to push the boundaries of what a computer lab could be. I see Emory as being on the leading edge of trying things. We're continually working on ways of enhancing collaborative work so that students can share ideas, work on projects together and brainstorm," says Cattier.

Visitors from other universities stop by monthly to see how Emory is using the latest available technology to foster instruction and group learning. The lab has grown from 5,000 users a month in the old facility to more than 15,000, including days when more than 1,000 students visit (out of a student population of about 12,000). The feedback from students has been positive (students gave it high praise in the 2005 senior survey) and the Student Government Association has petitioned for longer hours.

"It has somehow managed to be a work environment that allows social interactions to occur freely, but also a place for an individual to really get work done," says Emory junior Laura Codron. She echoes the sentiments of many Emory students, both undergraduate and graduate, who have found in Cox Hall a technological haven to meet academic demands that increasingly focus on group projects and the use of technology.

The center is part of a larger network of academic computing facilities across campus – the Centers for Educational Technology – designed to support and promote creative and innovative uses of technology in academic courses and research at Emory. It is often the first place where new technology is tested and used before being adopted in other classrooms.

Features of the Cox Hall center include:

• State–of–the–art multimedia equipment. The showpieces are several wide plasma touch–screens that can serve as computer monitors for presentations, function as electronic white boards that can be written on and the material then printed or turned in to a Web page, or display DVDs.

• Nearly all the furniture is on wheels. The decor is hip and inviting, with cosmic purple carpet, hardwood floors, artsy low–lighting and ultra–modern furnishings and partition walls – some that serve as dry–erase boards – that can be moved around to fit changing needs.

• The center has two classrooms and a glass-enclosed meeting space known as "the fishbowl." Classrooms are continually in use for classes as well as meeting spaces for a variety of student groups that want to take advantage of the technology.

• Workstations are built for either comfort or function. For example, the most popular stations have floor pillows and low tables for students pulling a long session on a project, while an iMac bar in the back provides a place to quickly check email.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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