Northwestern Adds and Improves Classroom Spaces
Posted on Oct. 23, 2009
In the fall of 2008, Northwestern Health Sciences University unveiled a new building – the Wolfe-Harris Center for Excellence – and the adjoining Standard Process Healing Garden. Both were a result of the $8 million “Imagine Our Future” Capital Campaign.
In addition to the new construction, Northwestern also designated significant resources to renovating substantial areas of the original building in order to add thousands of square feet of classroom space. The completion of the new 50,000-square-foot addition produced a “ripple effect” throughout the original building.
When the University’s Greenawalt Library and the research division – the Wolfe-Harris Center for Clinical Studies – moved to the new building, more than 16,000 square feet of space were freed up for other uses. The move of the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Alumni, Development and Career Services – along with the President, Provost and Senior Vice President offices – freed up even more space for repurposing.
The result was five new classrooms in the original building, ranging from a 123-seat videoconferencing center to a new radiology lab. This work would not have been possible without the generous support from donors as the University has worked to meet the aggressive goals of the “Imagine Our Future” Capital Campaign, according to Mark Zeigler, DC, Northwestern’s president.
View a photo tour of the new classrooms on Flickr.
Two of the newest classrooms are in their final phases of completion and both feature significant advances in learning technology. “These will provide Northwestern with some of the best learning environments in natural health care education,” says Dr. Zeigler.
The Center for Diagnostic Imaging Radiology Lab, located in Room 202 on the top floor of the original building, features 28 workstations that allow students to view and manipulate digital X-rays. The previous X-ray lab, which featured traditional viewboxes, was gutted to make way for the new CDI Radiology Lab. CDI donated more than $200,000 toward the new lab, another example of CDI’s long-term commitment to helping build Northwestern into the university of choice in natural and integrative health care, notes Dr. Zeigler.
The Integrity Management Videoconferencing Center is nearing completion on the east side of the original building. This 123-seat classroom is located where the admissions and continuing education offices were previously housed, and features complete videoconferencing capabilities. The classroom will include two 8-foot wide flat screen monitors, computer hookups at each desk space, and many other features that allow speakers from around the world to connect with Northwestern’s students in a two-way dialogue as part of their classes. The Center will also be used extensively on weekends and evenings for continuing education classes for all of our alumni and other private practitioners, says Dr. Zeigler.
Three additional classrooms were completed in late spring and were used extensively during the summer trimester, including:
- Room 18 on the lower level, which is located in the space that the bookstore previously occupied. This dual-purpose classroom and lab provides students in our massage therapy and acupuncture programs with an efficient and flexible learning space for 40 students. The room includes 20 massage tables and multiple changing rooms. The beauty of the space is that students can listen to a lecture and then immediately shift to hands-on training without ever leaving the room.
- Northwestern also created a new 18-seat classroom in the remainder of the former bookstore space. Room 15 is heavily used by the Undergraduate Studies program, which is an intensive pre-professional program for students intending to enroll in our chiropractic degree program.
- A new dry anatomy lab was created where the Greenawalt Library had been, and provides 32 students a first-rate learning environment featuring dozens of anatomical models. The lab complements the gross anatomy lab, and gives anatomy faculty the flexibility they need to provide Northwestern students with the best education possible.
“Northwestern is committed to offering a physical environment that supports our goal of being the university of choice in natural and integrative health care,” says Dr. Zeigler. “Thanks to the support of University partners and donors, Northwestern students now have an unmatched learning environment to help them prepare for success as natural health care practitioners.”
Find these and other Northwestern photo collections on Flickr anytime at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nwhsu/sets/