Save the Classrooms in Heavilon

save the calssrooms in Heavilon

A proud English alum!

The English department offers crucial courses for Purdue students. It is beneficial for its typical classroom days to remain in Heavilon Hall, as the Purdue Writing Lab, ICaP office, TA offices, and ICaP conferencing centers are in the same building. As an English instructor since 2012, I know firsthand that my students benefit from these immediate resources-- something they would lose easy access to if the classes were moved to Recitation Hall or other buildings. Likewise, Heavilon Hall should be updated to accommodate the modern, technology-centric teaching styles of our English instructors that fit our students' dynamic learning needs.

English professor and TA offices are in Heavilon. The building should be renovated and outfitted with up to date technologies to meet the needs of students and teachers today

This building is historic and beautiful. I'm sure, considering all the other new construction/renovations, there is room to save it. I had quite a few incredible classes there before I graduated.

This decision makes absolutely no sense. Eliminating the first floor classroom is inefficient and short-sighted. Professors and instructors should be able to teach in the classrooms in their "home" building where their offices are located. Students are more likely to visit their professors and instructors when their offices are nearby. Purdue's WL campus is huge; asking professors to traverse long walks loaded down with books and other equipment necessary for teaching is ridiculous. It was bad enough hiking over to the Engineering buildings to teach ENG 101 when I was a grad student. To do so as a professor? NO. The English Department must be able to hold most of its classes in its own building. I'm quite certain there are other, more viable alternatives. Rebecca Saulsbury Bravard, M.A. (1993), and Ph.D. (1999) in English and American Studies, Purdue

I completed my BA, MA, and PhD at Purdue's English department, and I benefited tremendously from the close scholarly community grown up within Heavilon. Even though we publish our articles individually instead of in research groups as the STEM fields do, there is a tremendous amount of collaboration that goes on within the department that makes our work more innovative and accessible, and therefore more influential. Scattering the department across the campus will weaken that scholarly community and make forthcoming research less valuable to Purdue and the field as a whole.

I earned by PhD in English and Purdue and I am now a professor at another institution. I understand the complicated and political nature of space allocation at a university. I have never seen a positive result when departmental space is split up; morale and a sense of community goes down and collaboration among faculty and students decreases. Please seek feedback from all constituencies and reconsider this proposal.

As someone who currently teaches in another building at her institution for two of my classes, I can tell you that you do decrease efficiency by instructors, decrease community (especially among adjuncts who already have difficulty forming community), and underserve students, who often come to see profs right after class. AB, Purdue '91 and '99

I just remembered that William Saroyan was a visiting professor with classes and an office in Heavilon Hall. Please preserve the connection that having classes and office hours space in the same area offers to students.

I am a member of the CLA Master Planning Committee. I don't remember, at any point, being told that Heavilon--or the English Department--would be losing classrooms. There was discussion of renovating the basement for use by the Polytechnic folks. That's the only talk I remember about space in Heav being assigned to departments other than English. Our classrooms need to stay in Heav. We're working hard to remain a cohesive department in the wake of so many cuts, restrictions, and decisions that affect our morale. Take away our classrooms? Sure, Purdue, may I have *another* slap in the face?

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.

1971 graduate in English

I grew up at Purdue, where my father taught in the Ag Econ Dept, but my best friend's father and my future father-in-law taught in the English Dept. I started going to Heavilon Hall in the 1960s to read journals in the Modern Fiction Studies office with my friend Brent Beebe, whose father founded and edited that important journal. Though I went away to Boston for college, I took a summer school class in Heavilon Hall. Many years later, I returned to Purdue, met my wife Elizabeth, spent a year in Heavilon, taking classes, teaching classes as a teaching assistant, and getting certified to teach high school. I second what others have said. Faculty should be consulted about these kinds of changes. The classrooms in the new building do not seem to have been designed for writing and literature courses. When possible (and it seems it remains possible in this situation), it is best to have classes in the same building that houses the Department's administrative offices and faculty offices, which makes it easier for students to meet with their professors and take care of any advising, paperwork, etc. that requires them to visit the main office. Moving the classrooms out of Heavilon Hall can only work against the creation of community that is essential to any department.

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.

As an English Literature major, Class of 2010, I spent most of my time in Heavilon seated in a circle, discussing great works of literature with my professors and fellow students.

Concerned about the future of the Department and the field of Humanities in general.

Heavilon Hall and its faculty, staff, and students have been waiting for its renovation for years. It is time!

BA 2009, MA 2011 Unless you are proposing to build the brand new space the English department deserves, leave Heavilon alone and let the faculty, staff, and students continue to do excellent teaching and scholarship without your "help."

There are numerous problems with this plan. First, the English Department was never consulted about how it would impact our teaching mission and our students. It was merely presented to us at the end of this semester as a fait accompli that would commence next fall. Second, Heavilon Hall has been the home of the department for many decades, and its design of space perfectly fits the department's longtime decision to have smaller classrooms with close interactions between professors and students (as opposed to large lecture halls). Third, by separating our classrooms from our main office, the offices of our various programs, and our own offices, we lose the many informal interactions between professors and students that contribute to the quality of the education that we provide. This is particularly important to the life of the department. Fourth, the Wilmeth Active Learning Center, to which many of our courses will be moved, is designed for Chemistry, Engineering, Atmospheric Sciences, Life Sciences, Physics, and Pharmacy courses, not for English courses. As one of my colleagues has observed: "there are no chalkboards in the front of the rooms; there is, generally, no 'front' to the rooms at all. The classrooms are designed for faculty to walk among students and between various modular 6 or 8 person tables as students work on problem sets or other collaborative projects. This is fine for some of the things we do, but it is certainly not the one-size-fits all solution to classroom arrangement that the upper administration thinks it is." I don't ask for much to teach: tables and chairs or desk chairs for my students so we can all face each other; a chair for me to sit in; a table to spread out my books and notes on; lights so we can see; and a blackboard to write on. I use the blackboard in every class, sometimes to write something I've prepared, but more often spontaneously in response to a student's question or to explain a concept. The latter cannot be do