Fisk Hall at Wesleyan University

WESLEYAN FISK HALL UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR GLOBAL STUDIES AND CENTER FOR PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION

PIONEERING PEDAGOGY THROUGH PLACEMAKING

NEWMANARCHITECTS.COM

About Our Firm

Newman Architects PC is a collaborative design firm led by Joseph Schiffer, Richard Munday, Peter Newman, José A. Hernández, Steven Orlansky, and A. Brooks Fischer. Newman Architects is based in New Haven, Connecticut in the heart of the Yale University Campus.

Newman’s Washington, DC branch office is located in Georgetown, and supports our ability to serve our clients in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The quality of our work has been recognized through publication and awards. We have received more than 125 design excellence awards, including awards from the American Institute of Architects, the Boston Society of Architects, and the International Interior Design Association.

INTRODUCTION Helping young people thrive amid the new normal of perpetual change in a globalizing, technology-driven world demands new kinds of programs and facilities that maximize flexibility and the ongoing evolution of education itself. It needs an architecture that both enables innovative pedagogies and serves as a laboratory for their continuous reinvention, approaching teaching and learning as experimental, iterative processes that include students among change agents.

Symbolizing a renewed commitment to innovative global education

“To learn, read. To know, write. To master, teach.�

- Hindu proverb

Wesleyan’s new joint Center for Global Studies (CGS) & Center for Pedagogical Innovation (CPI) illustrates the special opportunities and challenges of designing for these dynamic programs and their transitioning human organizations. Combining the two programs in one building creates a facility to serve students, faculty, and staff holistically. Locating CGS/CPI in Fisk Hall makes it visible and accessible, symbolizing its importance to the University.

This renovation creates a welcoming, inspiring environment in the heart of campus for fostering a community devoted to innovative teaching and learning, tapping the power of placemaking to bring together and support people engaged in inventing themselves and the future.

PROGRAM “Global intelligence derives from an ability to transcend borders of various types in our understanding of ourselves within the world we inhabit.”

- Wesleyan University Global Studies White Paper Engaging colleagues from many cultures

The Fisk Hall program unites two naturally complimentary organizations to share facilities and promote collaborative ventures.

CENTER FOR GLOBAL STUDIES The Center for Global Studies’ (CGS) mission is to help all members of the Wesleyan community achieve the knowledge, language skills, and sensitivity for citizenship in an inter-dependent world. It emphasizes intercultural communication, experience, and knowledge. Its goal is to position Wesleyan’s liberal-arts program at the forefront of global education.

An inherently interdisciplinary program, CGS leverages University resources vigorously: the Wesleyan curriculum, faculty, student body and staff; the Offices of Study Abroad and of Fellowships, Internships and Exchanges; and the Language Resources and Technology Center.

CGS facilities in Fisk include a multi-purpose Commons and a small office suite. It shares flexible, technology-rich active-learning spaces, a conference room, a technology/recording studio, a digital testing room, and exhibition space with CPI.

CGS employs these resources to: • Identify and expand opportunities for students and faculty to pursue global perspectives.

• Support each department, program, center, and college to develop global perspectives.

• Provide a forum for exploring pedagogies and administrative strategies to suit cultural demands.

• Help students transcend disciplines and coordinate experiences in accordance with a global education.

• Increase mobility of Wesleyan students and faculty in support of more vibrant cross-cultural debate.

• Invigorate global discussions on campus through visits by scholars, artists, and activists.

• Promote partnerships with peer institutions in the United States and abroad.

• Promote collaborative teaching and research across disciplinary and cultural boundaries.

• Develop curricular opportunities for students to tailor a global education to their needs and aspirations.

CENTER FOR PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION “Dramatic changes in technology and emphasis on learning that is engaged with the world are presenting new opportunities, and many Wesleyan faculty are rethinking how best to present the material they know so well. The CPI is being designed to help them do just that.”

- Charles G. Salas, Dir. Strategic Initiatives, Wesleyan University The Center for Pedagogical Innovation and Lifelong Learning’s (CPI) missions is to inspire, incubate, and disseminate pedagogical innovations to support lifelong learning. Its mission includes providing Wesleyan University faculty and instructional staff with the infrastructural resources, technical and logistical assistance, and training and mentoring needed to design, test, and deliver innovative courses, instructional materials, formats or modes of delivery, and advising or mentoring programs.

CPI facilities in Fisk includes a small office suite and library meeting space. It shares flexible, technology-rich active-learning spaces, a conference room, a technology/recording studio, a digital testing room, and exhibition spaces with CGS. The Commons provides the social heart of the combined programs, a welcoming, flexible ‘international public square’ for informal gathering and occasional events.

Promoting collaborative active learning

The following units and initiatives comprise CPI: • Instructional Design and Development focuses on supporting faculty in their teaching, aligning objectives with outcomes, problem-solving, and developing strategies.

• Office of Faculty Career Development helps faculty develop strong teaching skills through workshops, seminars, student focus groups, videotaping, and individual consultations, as well as workshops on research technology, grant writing, professional speaking, publishing, and leadership training.

• Pilot Programs develops new and innovative curricular approaches.

Below are examples of tools and components employed in programming.

On-campus programming workshop

Audio video recording

Technology Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL)

PROGRAM AREA SUMMARY

Programmers reviewed contemporary models for flexible space utilization to promote collaboration and innovation.

Poised for Change: Mobile and reconfigurable furnishings

PROGRAM EXPLORATIONS

Movable, writable wall systems create variable teaching and learning environments.

Removing Boundaries: Transparent, movable, writable walls

Rooms designed for strong sense of place incorporate technology to help support new methods of teaching and learning.

The World at your Finger Tips: Interactive technology to energize a learning community

DESIGN CONCEPT "Education should be directed in reference to two objects: the good of the individual educated and the good of the world."

“The great object which we propose to ourselves in the work of education is to supply, as far as we may, [individuals] who will be willing and competent to effect the political, intellectual, and spiritual regeneration of the world.”

- Willbur Fisk, first president of Wesleyan University (1831-39) An entrance that draws people from across campus

The Fisk Hall project transforms out-moded facilities to create a new campus destination at an historic campus gathering place.

Student Center

Fisk Hall joins the existing student center and Boger Hall (a Newman adaptive-reuse project) in reinforcing and energizing College Row, the University’s historic front yard.

Named for the University’s founding President, Fisk Hall embodies Wesleyan’s enduring connection to its liberal-arts origin and history.

Locating CGS here honors Fisk’s pioneering priorities: globalism and contemporary languages. Fisk Hall’s strategic location and stately architecture give CGS/CPI campus prominence and identity. They symbolize the University’s re-commitment to formative principles via new pedagogical strategies and their continuous evolution.

Arts Center Quad

Andrus Field

CONTEXT-AWARE PLANNING

Boger Hall College Row

Fisk Hall

Site Plan

Pedestrian Promenade

RECONFIGURED AREA

RENOVATION AREA Existing Uses to Remain

Active-Learning Classrooms Center for Global Studies Multi-use Collaboration Spaces Support & Circulation

The Commons’ ‘international village square’

SPACE PLANNING

Language Operable DistanceResource Partition Learning Room Classroom

Kitchenette Commons & Coffee Bar

Space planning combines gut-renovation and restoration to make a place for gathering community on Fisk’s lower levels.

On the street side’s ground level (the building’s second floor), renewing the center hall as the new main entrance welcomes users dramatically and creates a social heart.

Central Hall

New wall openings along the central hall and new glass partitions create inviting views into multi-purpose spaces.

The Commons brings students and faculty of many cultures together in a high-ceilinged ‘international village square’ bounded by CGS offices with glass partitions to borrow light and views from existing monumental windows.

Flexible furnishings enable a variety of activity configurations throughout.

Existing Classroom

Technology/Recording Suite

Conference Room

Second Floor Program Plan

RECONFIGURED AREA Active-Learning Classrooms

RENOVATION AREA Existing Uses to Remain

Center for Global Studies Center for Pedagogical Innovation Support & Circulation

Furniture systems that foster project-based collaboration

The open main stair leads people to another centrally located hall on the floor below. This welcoming gathering place connects to clear pathways leading to more shared resources, CPI offices, and exterior entrances that connect to popular outdoor seating used for seminars and collaboration. Again, flexible furnishings enable a variety of use configurations in the larger activity spaces.

Computer Testing Stations

Project-Based Learning Classroom

Existing Classroom

TECHNOLOGY State-of-the-art IT and AV technology enables innovative programming through a mix of wired, wireless, fixed, and portable capabilities, yet remains subservient to placemaking for building community. A universal user-friendly technology package avoids predisposing use patterns. Flexible infrastructure anticipates continuous change in these technologies.

CPI’s Director reports that faculty have embraced the open, fluid collaboration this technology has enabled, and that “it is already changing the culture of teaching at Wesleyan.”

Central Hall

Library/ Meeting Demonstration Classroom

First Floor Program Plan

DESIGN EXPLORATIONS DESIGN CHALLENGE A key design challenge was to remove boundaries to create a sense of arrival, openness, and light in place of the formerly dark rabbit warren surrounding the entrance. Opening Central Hall walls and clearing adjacent areas surrounded an armature of portals and pathways with inviting gathering spaces, shown here in digital studies.

Study: Commons gathering space with generous windows and daylight

Existing second floor Central Hall

Study: Language Resource/Global Studies area (with operable partition open)

Study: opened, brightened Central Hall

OUTCOMES

Gathering Community: The drawing power of Fisk Hall

Removing Boundaries: Welcoming people to encounter cultural diversity, creating a social heart for campus

The International Village Square: Encouraging cultural exploration with an inviting, stimulating, comfortable destination space

Growing Community for Change: Facilitating camaraderie and collaboration for global intelligence and pedagogical innovation

Portal, Path, and Place: Creating a flexible armature for evolving uses

Connecting the Classroom to the World: Active learning with global classmates in real time

Taking Charge of Change: Touching down and collaborating with flexible furnishing and responsive technology

Reinventing Pedagogy: Refreshing and re-equipping a traditional classroom for new active-learning modalities

Connecting Town and Gown: Engaging a major campus-city pathway by teaching and learning outdoors

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