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Project narrative
Project narrative
Guilford’s Leak Room was targeted specifically for enhancement with the support of Title III funding for new and dynamic learning technologies enhancements and a transformative design of the tiered seating that would be supportive of active and collaborative learning. This redesign was seen as an opportunity to meet the challenge to optimize the potential of the space to engage learners in a larger setting in a multitude of collaborative activities.
Instructional technologies will support both front and rear presentation and enable simultaneous display from each of the zoned panels. The space will feature high quality sound and imaging, with teleconferencing and lecture capture capabilities. Remote learners will be able to engage with in-class learners. The tiered seats will swivel and be height adjustable in six zones, each with its own display panel supporting group activities. A wireless environment will further support mobility and flexibility. Additionally, a laptop kiosk dispensing both PC and Mac laptops will be available on demand for those who do not have their own devices. Our vision for the Leak Room is as a technology-enriched, active and collaborative learning environment, transformed from the current limitations of its static design to the freedom of new flexible universal design features. Maximum capacity for the space will be 56 students and 2 instructors.
The Leak Room's renovations will be completed in Summer 2024 and the official opening will take place in August 2024.
Applications
Applications
If you would like to use the Leak Room as a teaching space for your class, please fill out the form below. This is another experimental space where instructors are encouraged to try new pedagogical techniques and ideas. Preference will be given to those who plan to leverage the technology in new and interesting ways. If you would like to talk about ways to utilize the room, don't hesitate to reach out to a member of the Learning Design and Development Team.
Apply to use the Leak Room here:
History
History
The original vision for the space was conceived in the mid-1960s by alumnus and well-regarded Greensboro resident C. Elmer Leak (class of 1902). It was envisioned as the signature educational space within a renovated Duke Hall; in Leak's own words, it was to be a "World Cultural Center". The original vision was truly unique. Audio-visual displays would be positioned on each wall and the seating would be on the top tier of a raised platform that would be controlled from two lecterns. The seats would rotate 360 degrees to allow students to view the multiple display panels built into the walls ("World Cultural Center"). Leak's intention, then, was to create culturally engaged, technologically fluent, and socially responsible graduates.
As with all bold ideas, there was pushback. Some students decried the exorbitant cost of the new space, wondering how it could ever be worth the $100,000 to build it. Even The Guilfordian's editorial page snidely suggested that the space was all sizzle and no steak. As Gary Lessner, the Managing Editor, asserted that it "seems very possible that the Center's educational objectives will be lost in a jumble of electronic captivation" (Lessner, 1965). A combination of insufficient funding and a lack of support in some areas meant that the truly ambitious vision had to be scaled back. Even with those compromises, the space represented an advancement for teaching and learning with an audio-visually enhanced environment while bearing the Leak family name.
Jump forward six decades and the Leak Room was woefully outdated. Into the breech stepped Suzanne Bartels, the Director of Hege Academic Commons, who promoted a new vision, much closer to Leak's original conception, of a twenty-first century collaborative learning space. Many of Leak's ideas have been vindicated by modern scholarship of learning design. In particular, scholars have pointed time and again to the critical importance of liberal education for holistic student development while noting the dazzling results of experiential learning (Kuh, 2018). Bartels was a driving force behind the Title III grant that is funding the 2023-2025 renovation.
REFERENCES
Lessner, Gary. (1965, February 19). World Culture Center: A dissenting vote. The Guilfordian XLIX, no. 7: 2.
Kuh, George. (2018, May-August). Whither holistic student development: It matters more today than ever. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 50, no. 3-4: 52-57.
World Culture Center to be hub of learning. (1964, December 16). The Guilfordian XLIX, no. 5: 1.
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