Learning Commons on the Road, part 2: Occidental College
Spring Break 2015 continued with a trip to the Academic Commons in the Occidental College Library. The Commons is a nexus of transformed spaces, resources, services and programs focused on sustaining an intellectual teaching and learning community at Occidental for the 21st Century.
The heart of the Library Commons is the Center for Academic Excellence & Center for Digital Liberal Arts.
We had stimulating conversations with Occidental’s three leaders of Information Resources: James Uhrich, the Chief of Technology and Associate Vice President for Information Technology; Dan Chamberlain, the Associate Vice President and Director of the Center for Digital Liberal Arts, and Bob Kieft, the College Librarian. We met with the Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, the Associate Dean for the Curriculum, Director of the Writing Center, Undergraduate Research Center, Associate Dean of Research, Director of the Community Literacy Center, and the Center for Digital Liberal Arts staff.
Of note is the G
lobal Crossroads project, a large-scale environmental installation media wall driven by content created within an accompanying web application. The project is exciting to Hampshire as it is a larger-scale version of our Magic Board, and has compelling curricular connections, as well as a repository for student and faculty generated content.
The Hampshire team learned a lot from these trips, and have returned to campus energized, and excited to work more on our plan. Stay tuned for more!