Collaborate

While the design/build process was often opaque, my department still felt that we had a large degree of agency in renovating a space on campus to suit our needs. With much collaboration, our goals were achieved and we now have an ideal space for teaching and learning. We attribute this achievement to having a design philosophy that helped us to communicate our ideas clearly to a variety of stakeholders.

View from Faculty: Mike Lyons, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies

"I think input from the COM department was the guiding force for the project. The space design would not look like it does without the persistent efforts of the COM department to consistently push for the original vision" (Lyons 2013).

View from Media Services: James Wilson, Director and Chief Engineer

"The COM department was essential in helping us shape Merion 174. They had this idea of a completely flexible collaborative workspace that the students can take control of the learning experience and the professor acts as kind of a mediator. They wanted the class to focus on student to student project based learning rather than traditional teacher lecture methods. These ideas led us to research technology that would help reach this goal" (Fowler 2013).

View from Administration: Paul Aspan, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

"The key has been the seamless approach to teaching, research and service evinced by the current COM faculty. Partnership is as important for any academic department as intellectual formation and technical competence. Ancient Greek texts have a word for the reality of the current COM program: koinonia. It is often translated as 'partnership' or 'fellowship,' but in fact stems from the ideal of the ancient polis, where the citizens understood themselves as bound together interdependently for the promotion of the common good. The input from the COM department in this case reflected that sort of 'partnership' and thus provided a clear vision that spoke not only to an ideal classroom, but also to the practical components needed to create and sustain it. I would be remiss if I did not add that both Facilities and IT 'bought into' this well conceived vision, and have supported it, as have the Dean and the Provost. But, to use a variation on a theme, the success of the project can be attributed directly to the solidarity of the COM department as colleagues and partners in teaching and research informed not only by their individual training, but also by their respective commitments to the mission of education in the Jesuit tradition.

A successful argument for ideal classroom space stems from a well conceived program of research and pedagogy. The COM Department was able to craft a thoroughly convincing argument for a new lab, for the proposition grew organically out of the conversations and collaboration that happens on a daily basis in the department. It would be mistaken to think that COM is simply a department that is adept at the newest developments in digital communication. Rather, the colleagues who comprise the department have established a paradigm within the department for collaboration on building a major and minor curriculum, the ways and means of pedagogy, and for research and publication. I can think of no other department in the University where the faculty cohort has such a forward leaning vision that is so cohesive and oriented toward partnership in teaching and research. Thus, in this case, the department was able to make a strong case for an ideal classroom space by stating, in essence, 'here is what we need for what we do. Here is what we do, together, and individually, and here is how the space we envision will help us accomplish our mission with and for the students'" (Aspan 2013).