CS

Computer Science (CS)

Students benefit from creative financing, based on guaranteed revenue

When Virginia Tech's Department of Computer Science (CS) decided it wanted to upgrade its undergraduate facilities from a dark, dreary windowless basement area in McBryde Hall housing rows upon rows of personal computers to a modern learning center, it actually took out a mortgage of sorts. The CS department felt the improvements were that important to the students.

The renovation costs were close to $1 million. The loan would come from the “parent company,” the College of Engineering, and the “mortgage payments” would be returned to the college over the course of several years, with money from the engineering fees.

The CS department did not want to have to wait years for the fees to accrue before they could redesign the space.

“We were dissatisfied with the kind of learning that was transpiring. Much of the students' work is done in teams, and we had no facilities to support that learning environment,” said Barbara Ryder, CS department head and the J. Byron Maupin Chaired Professor. “They certainly no longer needed computer labs to do their work, as all the students carried their own laptops.”

Consequently, the department decided to provide specialized lab space where the students could utilize dedicated machines. “We can't teach concepts without allowing the students to experiment. We are also providing specialized software, academically licensed, that supports teamwork. CS students can use this software to explore aspects of computer science that are beyond what is available on their laptops,” Ryder added.

Andrew Mussey, a freshman in CS, agreed. He described the new facility as one where he could go to find help in solving problems. He enjoys the cooperative learning atmosphere that the new space is designed to encourage.

With a Hokie Card, students like Mussey are able to avail themselves of the facility 24/7, a necessity for the night owl CS students.

The space is unstructured, with a white board for instruction and collaboration on group projects. Movable chairs and tables facilitate teaming. Teaching assistants have carrels to maintain office hours, and a lecture space is also easily arranged. CS student organizations are also able to use the space for meetings. Nearby, CS houses its media, software and systems labs. Still under development is the new animation lab.

Steve Harrison, a CS faculty member who also holds an architectural degree from the University of California, Berkeley, carried “a lot of the redesign responsibility,” according to Ryder.

As Harrison explained his role, the new area “didn't just spring from my head. We had a lively debate about keeping the old-fashioned lab. We had numerous meetings and some town halls with the undergraduates. The students gave us good feedback. It was very important to them that the space be considered theirs. In some ways, the new area was considered to be an experiment where we could always put back the old PCs. But now, that is no longer discussed.”

Harrison added that he looked at models at other universities, specifically citing the Strata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, home to its CS and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Its intentionally unfinished look is supposed to serve as a metaphor for the creativity of the research that is conducted inside.

Providing for creativity is key to the renovated CS space in McBryde. The design allows a “continuum between the classroom and the social space of students. That's why it was so important to have the TAs maintain space that was immediately available to the students,” Harrison said.

During the initial remodeling discussions among the CS faculty, Harrison recalled that the group reflected on their own education and remembered that their learning was enhanced by being among students with similar problems. Since many of the CS courses have group assignments, the new design works well. “It is not clear to me that this would transfer to other curriculums,” said Harrison, who teaches Media Computation, Creative Computing Capstone Design, and Design of Information.

Ryder, who arrived at Virginia Tech in fall of 2008, acknowledged that much of the credit for this renovation belongs to her predecessor, Dennis Kafura, who remains on the faculty, and Ginger Clayton, the department's financial manager, who “lived this project.”