Unit Facilities
The unit’s programs are housed in the 33 East Congress Building of the College, with offices located on the fourth floor and classrooms located on the fourth and fifth floors. All full-time faculty and academic staff have a private office, equipped with appropriate furniture, a phone, a printer and a computer that is connected to the College’s network system. The unit is equipped with fax machines, scanners, and a state-of-the-art photocopier. Another photocopier is also available for student use in the Computer Lab. Requests for maintenance of the offices and classrooms are addressed on a timely basis.
Newly-constructed space on the fifth floor has space for part-time faculty use. In addition, file cabinets and book shelves are available on the fourth floor, should part-time faculty want to keep materials on campus. Closets with locks are also available in some of the classrooms for part-time faculty use.
A large conference room with resource materials is also available to all faculty, in addition to the full services of the College’s library.
Audio-visual services are readily available to faculty. Several overhead projectors, TV/VCR’s, a slide projector, tape recorders, multimedia projectors, and a video-camera are kept in a locked closet space for faculty use. Faculty generally request use of audio-visual equipment, and these are delivered directly to their classroom by the student workers on the day and time requested.
The unit also has computer labs with Internet access and scanners. Faculty can reserve the computer labs for instructional use. In addition, four classrooms on the floor are designated as Smart Rooms. Faculty are provided individual instruction on use of the equipment in the Smart Rooms. Plans are also underway for the installation of a Promethean Activeboard system in one of the unit’s classrooms. Training for using the system will be offered to all of the unit’s full- and part-time faculty.
Early Childhood Education offers its classes in two adjoining state-of-the-art college smart classrooms it has equipped and furnished with endowment funds. Each classroom has projection capabilities from a computer, CD/DVD, or VHS video. They are also wired for sound and share an ELMO. A second ELMO will be ordered this year. These classrooms are also designed to model smart classrooms in early childhood environments and reflect understandings as they emerge from the research being conducted by program faculty on the use of technology with young children. They hold twenty docked tablet computers, seven desk top computers, an oversize scanner, and a color printer. All interface through wi-fi and a wireless router. Faculty receive instruction in using the equipment each fall and on an ad hoc basis. The classrooms also provide immediate access to sample texts most frequently used in area schools; exemplary curricula; math and science manipulatives; and an art area, complete with sink and a significant range of materials. Classroom furniture has been selected to be easily movable by the Program’s primarily female population. The two classrooms open up onto each other to provide one space for events requiring a larger area. All ECE classes, workshops, and meetings are currently scheduled into these two very flexible classrooms.
The undergraduate program uses extensive videotaping of its candidates in its assessment and has a video camera available for each field supervisor. It has also integrated readings and assignments on the Reggio Emilia Approach throughout its curriculum and is working with Dr. Lella Gandini, U.S. Liaison to Reggio Emilia, in further developing the program. Work with Dr. Gandini during the upcoming year will focus on documentation and we will be increasing the number of digital cameras available to faculty for this purpose.
