Transformational Education > New classrooms
Angela Crispi on "Student namecards"
Transcript
It wasn't a real epiphany until somewhere along the way, in the—new Hawes project, we were in an Aldrich classroom. There was a faculty advisory group that worked with us on that. And we would meet in Aldrich because if you're going to design a classroom, you probably ought to sit in a classroom while you're doing that.
And we were in Aldrich, and we were debating—it was about 15 minutes, but we were debating the size of the little slot where the seat card goes. And we were debating that from the standpoint of: how are those cards produced? How to make sure that they're not floppy, because floppy might be distracting. And we need to make sure that someone—someone's name matters to them. And when that name is there it's got to be solidly in that slot. Because as a professor I need to see it. I've got to quickly be able to know who I want to talk to. What is the student's identity? And I sat there, I mean, truly in stunned silence of we are faculty here, right? We're talking about an eighth of an inch, and how critical it is to get that right.
And it really—for me, I mean, it was just one of the—truly an epiphany of having brought home the whole student experience, and everything together. But I, you know, I have to say one of the proudest moments for me of realizing it all comes down to that, and the commitment that this place has to the work that they do.