Two objectives in President Christina Paxson’s strategic plan — the expansion of the School of Engineering and the creation of the Laboratory for Educational Innovation — are still in the planning phases, though both are set to commence soon.
An institute for environmental sustainability marks a third strategic plan goal that will likely be implemented in the coming year.
The plan to build a new engineering facility was conceived when the Corporation approved the creation of a separate School of Engineering in 2010, said Lawrence Larson, dean of engineering. The building will allow the program to expand.
Ideally, the project will be completed within the next four years, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15.
The number of engineering faculty members will rise from the current 48 to as high as the mid-fifties, and both the doctoral and master’s programs will accept more students in coming years, Larson said. Doctoral programs currently admit 30 students annually, and master’s programs currently admit between 60 and 80 students, he added.
Thirty million dollars of the $160 million campaign the University launched last year to expand engineering will be used to hire professors, Schlissel said.
In addition to providing more space for a larger student body and faculty, the building will feature “state-of-the-art” laboratories for various engineering disciplines, Larson said.
The University has yet to pick an architectural firm to design the building but will soon begin to accept proposals, Schlissel said. Pending Corporation approval, the likeliest location for the building is along Manning Walk by Barus and Holley, he added.
The Laboratory for Educational Innovation, which will promote the exploration of digital technology in the classroom, will be constructed in the Sciences Library as part of a renovation of three of the building’s floors, said Kathy Takayama, executive director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.
“We’re starting with the learning first,” Takayama said, adding that the project will not be used to force lecturers who prefer a traditional style to digitize their methods, but will rather be a resource for those who would like to incorporate digital media into their instruction.
The lab will partner both graduate and undergraduate students with faculty members to develop course content, she said.
To expand the Brown experience outside the classrom, the lab will facilitate the use of technology to connect students on campus to those at other universities and Brown students who are not on College Hill, Takayama added.
Schlissel pointed to the flipped classroom piloted in ECON 1110: “Intermediate Microeconomics” last semester as an example of technological innovation in course content, adding that the University is developing a similar model for physics and chemistry courses.
Last semester, Pedro Dal Bo, associate professor of economics, supplemented his traditional microeconomics lectures with shorter online instruction videos and replaced one of three weekly lectures with a problem-solving session, The Herald reported in January.
The flipped classroom exemplifies the purpose of the lab, which is to question how the curriculum’s productivity can be maximized, Takayama said.
Construction of the lab is set to begin this summer and will take at least a year to complete, Schlissel said.
As part of the strategic plan’s goal to bolster integrative scholarship, the Environmental Change Initiative, an interdisciplinary research program on environment and society, will be developed into an institute that will be the “intellectual home for people interested in environmental scholarship” at the University, said Amanda Lynch, director of the ECI and professor of geological sciences.
The recently unveiled Building for Environmental Research and Teaching — the “mothership” of environmental research where those interested in the discipline can “congregate and interact” — will house the institute, Lynch said.
The institute aims to bring attention to environmental stewardship, which is “by definition interdisciplinary,” Lynch said. The new space will bring together environmental researchers and students of various disciplines to address themes such as humans’ understanding of their relationship with the natural world, the availability of food and water, human health and well-being and equity and government, she said.
The institute will facilitate scholarly cooperation by providing seed funds for meetings and symposia, working groups, development grants and student travel grants, Lynch said.
The implementation proposal for the institute will go before the Academic Priorities Committee in the coming weeks, Schlissel said. If the committee approves the plan, the faculty will then vote on whether to send it to the Corporation. Schlissel said he hopes to see the project approved at the Corporation’s meeting in May.
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