We, the undersigned members of the English Department (faculty, staff, teaching assistants, graduate students, undergraduate majors and minors), and other affected members of the Purdue community, strongly oppose the current plans of the Academic Space Management Committee to eliminate the classrooms on the first floor of Heavilon Hall. We urge the committee to find alternatives that meet the strategic goals of the University without degrading the teaching mission and efficiency of the English Department.
Updates
April 17, 2017
The committee has not responded to our open letter yet so we are stepping up the pressure. Please email your department head today and demand they push for a public forum on these space changes.
April 17, 2017
The momentum we have built proves the administration cannot ignore our presence in Heavilon Hall. Post this link on Facebook and text three colleagues to keep the pressure on the committee.
Reached 100 supporters
April 17, 2017
50 Comments
My most effective and innovative pedagogy has come from chatting with other teachers in the hall before and after class. We lose this when we lose our communal teaching spaces. Additionally, students who attend office hours tend to do better in coursework, and attendance for office hours always goes down when the classroom and the office are in separate buildings.
Scattering the First-Year Writing classes across the university, rather than in and near Heavilon, makes the lives of both instructors and students unnecessarily chaotic.
Even when I sat in an English composition class at 7:30 in the morning in Heavilon Hall, I felt the importance of the English language in that space. Later when reading "The Red and the Black" and "Jude the Obscure" through the poet eyes of Professor Felix Stefanile in that same space, literature came alive. Please listen to the English department's concerns before making this decision.
As a program director, I advise both graduate and undergraduate students. Much of this contact is made possible because students catch me between classes they are enrolled in or teaching in Heavilon where my office is located on the first floor. If our courses are booted and dispersed, I suspect a significant percentage of advisement contacts will cease.
What is the point of the fancy new video monitor in the lobby of HEAV if no students enter the building? Maintaining English Department classrooms is good for the efficiency and morale of undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty.
Disabled faculty and staff should be kept in mind in terms of proximity to their offices.
Having classes close to our offices increases the chance that students will come by our offices for additional help or just to talk about something that they found interesting during class. It helps to build a culture of learning.
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We, the undersigned members of the English Department (faculty, staff, teaching assistants, graduate students, undergraduate majors and minors), and other affected members of the Purdue community, strongly oppose the current plans of the Academic Space Management Committee to eliminate the classrooms on the first floor of Heavilon Hall. We urge the committee to find alternatives that meet the strategic goals of the University without degrading the teaching mission and efficiency of the English Department.
Updates
April 17, 2017
The committee has not responded to our open letter yet so we are stepping up the pressure. Please email your department head today and demand they push for a public forum on these space changes.
April 17, 2017
The momentum we have built proves the administration cannot ignore our presence in Heavilon Hall. Post this link on Facebook and text three colleagues to keep the pressure on the committee.
Reached 100 supporters
April 17, 2017
50 Comments
This move will cut down on faculty-student interactions. A student is much less likely to walk a quarter of mile to my office to talk about a paper assignment than up one flight of stairs.
My most effective and innovative pedagogy has come from chatting with other teachers in the hall before and after class. We lose this when we lose our communal teaching spaces. Additionally, students who attend office hours tend to do better in coursework, and attendance for office hours always goes down when the classroom and the office are in separate buildings.
Scattering the First-Year Writing classes across the university, rather than in and near Heavilon, makes the lives of both instructors and students unnecessarily chaotic.
Even when I sat in an English composition class at 7:30 in the morning in Heavilon Hall, I felt the importance of the English language in that space. Later when reading "The Red and the Black" and "Jude the Obscure" through the poet eyes of Professor Felix Stefanile in that same space, literature came alive. Please listen to the English department's concerns before making this decision.
As a program director, I advise both graduate and undergraduate students. Much of this contact is made possible because students catch me between classes they are enrolled in or teaching in Heavilon where my office is located on the first floor. If our courses are booted and dispersed, I suspect a significant percentage of advisement contacts will cease.
What is the point of the fancy new video monitor in the lobby of HEAV if no students enter the building? Maintaining English Department classrooms is good for the efficiency and morale of undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty.
Disabled faculty and staff should be kept in mind in terms of proximity to their offices.
Having classes close to our offices increases the chance that students will come by our offices for additional help or just to talk about something that they found interesting during class. It helps to build a culture of learning.
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This move will cut down on faculty-student interactions. A student is much less likely to walk a quarter of mile to my office to talk about a paper assignment than up one flight of stairs.