h3. Name of concept: Strengthening the Core: The Wallace Center at RIT
h3. Overview
University libraries and learning centers are undergoing dramatic change \-\- altering the experiences and aspirations of students and faculty. Key drivers behind this change include:
* Technology and interactive media are shaping how students learn and how scholars access research and disseminate findings.
* Collaborative, team work and presentation skills are essential competencies for college graduates. Space and assisted learning are required to develop these skills.
* The librarian's role has shifted from the expert behind the desk to a partner by your side. Desk areas are slimming down or disappearing.
* In order to attract and retain new students, libraries and learning spaces must meet student needs and expectations.
* While The Wallace Center is not used in the same ways as it was 15 or 20 years ago, the building remains highly utilized. The 3,000 students who come into the building daily are spending, on average, 2.8 hours here, and a recent nationwide study showed faculty rated their dependence on the library higher in 2009 than in 2006. University libraries are now perceived as more than just a building for books-students rely on the library to serve their high tech demands in a space that invites collaboration and socialization and faculty look to the library for teaching, research, and scholarship support.
Studies show prospective students select a college, in part, on its facilities. One study revealed the second most important facility to prospective students is the library. In addition to recruitment, the library contributes to student retention, as well as to faculty success.
* An educational building is an expensive, long-term asset. Design of our library and learning spaces must be a representation of RITís vision and strategy for learning-responsive, inclusive, and supportive for all. Our full proposal for a complete renovation to the current facility is based on extensive research and student and faculty input, summarized at [http://library.rit.edu/future|http://library.rit.edu/future]
It includes:
# A comprehensive building redesign, including a writing studio, collaborative study areas, dynamic and interactive exhibition environments, and centralized access to experts in the academic disciplines.
# The inclusion of LEED-certified sustainability features into the building that will inspire visitors, provide a healthy learning environment, and enhance student well-being.
# A focus on the growing world-class collection of special materials that differentiates RIT from every other university, and enhances our global reputation for scholarship.
# A town-hall-style stage with full broadcast-quality technology support, that will also serve as an intimate performance space.
# Extraordinary support for faculty to conduct and disseminate research, ranging from guidance on self-publishing to full, peer-reviewed University Press publication.
Though this exciting re-imagination of RIT's most centrally located intellectual asset is intended to resolve the functional problems of the current facility, it also presents RIT with an opportunity to add some dynamic new architectural elements to the campus. For example:
# A soaring, arched glass arcade between the Wallace building and the College of Liberal Arts might create a dynamic new gathering space between the facades of the two buildings that both honors and elevates the original architectural vision for the campus.
# Similarly, a dramatic new entrance at the south end of the building will appeal to visitors to what is now the blandest side of campus, as well as acknowledge the needs of a substantial user population. In keeping with The Wallace Center's transformational objectives for itself, this new entrance might incorporate such features as:\* an indoor sculpture garden populated with Albert Paley pieces (supporting our commitment to developing unique special collections),
* b) a living, green wall (supporting our commitment to sustainability), and
* c) a town hall stage with broadcast capabilities and seating for 80 to 100 people (supporting our commitment to multi-functioned performance and information spaces). # RIT Library has a long history of supporting student exhibitions in Fine and Applied Arts and Photography. A natural extension of this program could showcase student work not from all of the diverse programs offered at RIT. Dynamic, interactive displays would not be limited to a physical piece of artwork or photography, but would showcase films, animations and other multimedia projects as well as engineering and scientific exhibits. The excitement and creativity of the "Imagine RIT" festival would be captured every day.
h3. How this idea leverages current areas of RIT expertise
The recent merger of the RIT Libraries and Teaching and Learning Services created a centralized and effective mix of resources and expertise for students and faculty. The Wallace Center is integral to the core academic functions of the university: innovative delivery of high quality information, effective course design and assessment, research and scholarly communication, to name just a few. Every college, every discipline, every faculty member, and every student benefits from a relationship with The Wallace Center. During quarters 20082 to 20092, for example, 89% of RIT faculty used the technology services available at The Wallace Center. Reinventing the space within which such highly valued assets are housed will elevate RITís stature with prospective students and faculty and will positively influence the experience they have at RIT.
h3. Main RIT on-campus champion(s) for this idea
While this proposal is formally championed by The Wallace Center, the primary voices for change have come from an extensive and objective survey of RIT students, faculty, and staff . They have acknowledged the importance of The Wallace Center in their academic lives and praised the quality of resources available. Students and faculty have also emphatically stressed the need for a comprehensive renovation that makes this building, along with its many resources, a state-of-the-art facility better suited to their evolving needs ([http://library.rit.edu/future).|http://library.rit.edu/future).  ]For example, students reported a need for more personal study areas, better spaces for groups to work, and flexible seating arrangements to support collaboration, such as circular tables that make it easier for deaf students to communicate. Students report needing more group study rooms, complete with white boards, where they can practice presentations. Students overwhelmingly requested upgraded support for technology such as more outlets, docking stations for laptops, and improved workstations. Faculty stressed their desire for more learning laboratories and functional spaces to collaborate with the expert staff in The Wallace Center. Faculty requested creation of a "Center for Faculty Innovation," where they can present their latest research and connections can be made across disciplines.
h3. Additional on-campus champions
Jeremy Haefner, Sr. VP for Academic Affairs and RIT Provost
Andrew Moore, Dean of Graduate Studies
Donald Boyd, VP for Research
Leadership of All Colleges at RIT
h3. Is there potential off-campus advocacy and support for the idea?
Yes.
h3. How you envision this idea advancing RIT's national or global stature in an important or emerging field
As RIT continues to shift from a comprehensive undergraduate and career-oriented university to one with greater emphasis on research and scholarship, its most important knowledge repository-The Wallace Center-requires a significant overhaul. The reconfiguration of staffing through the recent merger has strengthened our ability to support student and faculty success, but the building itself presents a considerable barrier. Built over 40 years ago and last renovated 20 years ago, Wallace Library was designed as a traditional library, its primary function to house growing printed collections and provide study space to utilize those collections. The inflexible floor layout has fixed study cubicles and cramped group study spaces designed for traditional reading and writing, not for collaboration and preparation of multimedia presentations that are the norm for today's students. It cannot support the technology use students demand, it looks tired and worn to prospective student families, and its considerable square footage cannot be maximized for changing needs because current structures are not flexible.
With unparalleled programs in imaging arts and sciences, gaming, and applied sciences, as well as developing programs in nano-technology, sustainability, architecture, and health services training, RIT is continuing on a path to global leadership. That leadership is only made possible by providing our university community with:
* A discipline-neutral and universally welcoming place to engage in communal and collaborative learning
* Exceptional collection resources
* State-of-the-art information, teaching, and collaboration technologies
* A variety of student and faculty-configurable study spaces
* Extraordinary exhibition and display areas
* Research assistance and publication services
* A sense of belonging and inspiration so strong and pervasive that all of RIT's diverse citizens are drawn to it
* No single investment RIT makes in its future can touch so many students and faculty.
h3. Why you believe RIT has a unique opportunity or an ability to differentiate itself through this idea
RIT is often described as a "Category of One" university. It is a recognized leader in a number of academic disciplines. Its library and its teaching and learning services have a reputation among other academic institutions for resourcefulness, innovation, unique special collections, and extraordinary partnership with students and faculty. However, a history of inadequate funding and an ageing building are degrading our ability to support effective student learning, as well as to forward RITís ambitions for global leadership. <br><br>As an energized and newly configured organization at an institution committed to change, The Wallace Center can no longer afford to apply incremental, reactive solutions to pervasive problems, which have at the root one issue: an institution as student-centered, technically progressive, and academically demanding as RIT cannot afford to have an inferior and inadequate space for students. This is especially true when that space is centrally important to attracting and retaining students and to the sustained academic success of the entire university. The Wallace Center is the physical and symbolic heart and intellectual nexus of RIT.
RIT is poised on the brink of an even more promising future. A renovated Wallace Center is vital to realizing the potential of that future.
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