Student Study Room
Mary Ashcraft, wife of Foundation Director David Ashcraft, donated funding for the renovation of the Student Study Room (the so-called "TAPPI lounge"). This room is used heavily by the students for individual and group study, as well as group meetings and social activities. The room's lace facelift was many years ago, and the carpet and furniture were showing signs of wear and tear.
The donation permitted the following changes:
> Leveling of floors
> Installation of three windows on the inside wall, to promote a better sense of openness
> New carpet
> New paint
> New, modern furniture that accommodates individual, small group, and large group study
> Storage closets for TAPPI materials and program shirts
> Three PC work stations and printer
> 40-inch plasma panel for displaying student work from PC's or laptops
> New large white board
The change was stark! The photos below show the room before and after. Student feedback has been very positive.
Many thanks to Mary for this strong show of support for our students and our program.
Main Classroom
Classroom 2221 is the "main" teaching classroom used by PSE. It was installed when the new (west) wing addition was completed in 1991, and it has seen heavy use since then (it is used almost continuous by PSE and by other programs in the College of Natural Resources).
According to David Ashcraft, one of the program's alumni (who has asked to remain anonymous) was touring the building, came upon the classroom, and was unhappy with the old-style fixed seating, worn carpet, and clunky audio-visual capabilities. He offered to make a sizable donation to "spruce the place up a bit."
The resulting re-design called for the following changes:
> Reducing maximum seats from 70 to 50
> Removing fixed seating and installing movable chairs and tables, to permit breakout groups
> New, modern carpet
> Single-cabinet A/V system with touch-screen selection of sources
Unfortunately, work of that scope can only be done during summer months (when no classes meet in that room), and the timeline did not permit this "full" renovation to be done in Summer 2008. So, NCSU approved a smaller-scoped intermediate renovation for the short term -- and the full renovation will be completed in Summer 2009.
The result of the intermediate renovation (which uses movable chairs with sidearm tablets) can be seen in the before and after photos below. The room is now much more modern and flexible, and it lends itself much better to modern teaching methods. Feedback from students, visitors, and other users of the room has been positive.
The PSE program owes our anonymous alumnus donor a great deal of thanks. This donation will have lasting impacts on the program for many years to come.
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