UND has made updates to some of its academic and teaching spaces.
Among many other projects, UND spent the summer upgrading 13 classrooms, rethinking faculty teaching support and remodeling the Chester Fritz Library as a part of a master plan to upgrade learning spaces.
“Our goal was to create a learning environment conducive to how students prefer to learn in the 21st century,” Madhavi Marasinghe, UND’s chief information officer, said in a press release. “I do believe we were able to do that in this round of upgrades.”
The Teaching Transformation and Development Academy along with the Office of Extended Learning, UND Online and Assessment and Accreditation, recently moved to the third floor of O’Kelly Hall. In total, about 45 people from all parts of campus moved into the third floor.
The renovated space is more open and is designed for more collaborative work than the previous space.
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Lynette Krenelka, executive director of TTaDA, said the new space will allow everyone to collaborate on a number of projects and will also be a place for faculty to work with the university’s instructional design team.
“It’s a beautiful space that’s really set up to showcase some of the digital media that we have to offer,” Krenelka said.
“This all tied in with our emphasis on teaching and learning and professional development in an integrated approach,” UND senior vice provost Debbie Storrs said. “We have five units coming together in one space to work collaboratively to advance the teaching and learning on this campus.”
Tuesday, UND will be hosting an open house at the Chester Fritz Library and the University Information Technology office.
The open house will look at UND’s One Button Studio, MakerSpace area, Knowledge Commons area and classroom space.
Much of the library was under renovation this summer. The university announced on its campus renewal blog on Monday, Sept. 23, that the west side of the third floor of the library is now open to the public.
