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Wired for Learning
Class Act: The college has just over 1,000 seats in 16 classrooms, including a 208seat auditorium and an executive development suite where members of the business community can take classes. Tech Time: Along with 28 group breakout rooms, left, equipped with flat screen TVs and recording equipment, the college is loaded with high-tech tools, including, from left above, smart screens, QR codes for room reservations, and a stock ticker.
Students settle into their seats, laptops and notebooks at the ready. The professor stands at a podium outfitted with a computer and control panel worthy of the starship Enterprise. With the press of a button, the blinds close. The lights dim. A screen drops from the ceiling. And the lecture is recorded for later podcast listening. “The technology is amazing,” says Courtney Firestine ’13, noting that even small details, like double electrical outlets between seats, make a difference. “Business students basically have their own home now,” she says. “It’s a great motivator. Just walking into the building gives an image of the future.” Students who used to set up camp in dorm rooms to work on projects now gather in breakout rooms, where they can be focused and efficient, and no time is lost wrestling with inadequate technology. “The new building encourages interaction with today’s technology and enhances opportunities to work together,” says Tom Varley ’80, a Paul College donor who has spent three decades in the hotel industry. And that’s a good thing, he points out, “because today’s business environment demands effective collaboration, as well as technologically relevant experience. Business is all about people.”
▲ What’s Cookin’: Professors slice and dice their way through
demonstrations in a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen in the hospitality management classroom.
▲ Cornerstone 1926: Named for the founding
year of the hospitality program, the college café provides fuel for long days of classes in the form of food—and caffeine. S pr i ng 2013 • Uni ve rs ity o f Ne w Hamps h i r e Mag azine • 19