Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/47623
idea exchange Idea Place student engagement areas outside faculty offices to encourage student- faculty interaction Location Elon University's Martha and Spencer Love School of Business in North Carolina, the first school BizEd featured on this page in November/ December 2001 The Solution Opened in 2006, the Koury facil- ity includes a curved three-story atrium with 12 faculty offices on each floor's exterior wall. Stu- dent work tables, lounge areas, whiteboards, and a collaborative computer station are located right outside faculty offices. Considerations When faculty first saw the design, they were worried about their privacy, says Buechler. To allay concerns, designers includ- ed blinds in the floor-to-ceiling windows next to each office door. Faculty can close their doors and blinds when they want to work without interruption. "This area has become the new library," says Linda Poul- son, an assistant professor of accounting. "I can help students work through a problem on the whiteboard right outside my office. All the faculty now have open-door policies—we really get to know our students out- side the classroom." 88 November/December 2011 BizEd Added Features Each student engagement area includes a collaborative computer sta- tion with a 30-inch monitor and high-volume printer, as well as meet- ing rooms at the periphery to allow students to gather in private. Students can work in two traditional computer labs, or a third col- laborative lab with seven "pods"; each pod is equipped with five net- worked computer stations that can route their individual displays to a single large monitor. Results The facility's features work just as administrators had envisioned— and the engagement areas are the "pièce de résistance," says Buechler. "This design fosters an unpredictable flow of activity—a small conversation can grow to a larger, more inclusive conversation with faculty and students," he says. "Many faculty hold office hours in these areas rather than in their offices. This arrangement allows our faculty to be visible and present." Love and Engagement The Goal In the design of the school's new Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center, administrators wanted to make student-faculty interaction not just prob- able, but inevitable. But when they toured new facilities to find examples of what they had in mind, "we did not see a model that supported student engagement the way we wanted," says Scott Buechler, interim dean. "Faculty offices were always far away from student gathering places." The Love School's Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center Student work and lounge areas are located outside faculty doors in the atrium of the Koury Center.