Costly Renovation for Hart Hall
By Raymond Loughlin
Staff Writer
Eric LePage attended the SGA meeting on 2/7/17, to discuss plans to renovate Hart 213. LePage is the Director of the Teaching and Technology Center, and proposed the renovation to SGA’s Space Committee and has stressed that the current furniture in Hart 213 is immovable during classes. He described the classroom as “in disrepair.”
Plans to redesign the room include new furniture and teaching equipment. The new furniture would be flexible. Whiteboards would be installed onto every wall of the room so when students worked in groups, each group could use their own whiteboard. Renovations also included removing the computers and installing a “Smart-Board.” The Smart Board would be able to send presentations to students’ phones or Blackboard accounts and have been advocated for by faculty members at BSU. Both Mohler-Faria Science and Mathematics Center and Moakley currently contain at least one smartboard, and the price to add a new one is relatively cheap. The computers that are currently in Hart 213 would be moved to another classroom in Moakley.
The renovation is expected to feature an experiment involving the implementation of standing desks that could adjust in height, in case a student wishes to use them traditionally as a sitting desk. LePage wishes it to be “active learning classroom,” and included a video presentation about his plans. The cost could possibly vary, from $30,000-$50,000, depending on the extensive work that IT and facilities will need to “modernize” Hart 213.
