The Classroom Quality and Attributes Committee of the Faculty Senate brought a list of recommendations to clean up, refurbish, modernize and make safe the university's teaching space to the Feb. 14 meeting of the senate's Executive Committee-a project totaling an estimated $772,230 for the 2001-02 academic year.

That estimate also includes technology upgrades already slated for this summer.

Committee chair Joseph Zambon, professor of periodontics and endodontics, said that after a total of six meetings-two of which were walking tours of the campus classrooms-the committee came up with 11 recommendations to be implemented, beginning this fall.

Those recommendations:

• All extraneous materials-including broken furnishings, additional chairs and desks-should be removed from classrooms. As well, bulletin boards, which Zambon said are intended to be used for academic postings only but are plastered continuously with non-academic fliers, would be removed entirely from the classrooms.

"There is a plethora of broken desks, extra lecterns, extra chairs-a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't belong in a classroom," Zambon said, noting that one sweeping aim of the committee is to prevent classrooms from becoming "a repository for a lot of junk."

• In a move toward improving security, UB should equip classrooms with swipe-card locks, at a cost of $500 per device, which would "reduce theft and result in cleaner, neater classrooms," according to the recommendation. The locks would operate on a timer-for example, opening automatically at 7:30 a.m. and locking again at 6 p.m.

"This seems a reasonable way for the university to protect the investment that it's made," said Zambon, noting the goal is to gradually phase in the locks, eventually implementing them university-wide.

• In an effort to equip more classrooms with a basic level of technology-56 classrooms on both North and South campuses have no technology beyond overhead projectors-UB should install 12 video cabinets, each containing a television and VCR, at a cost of $2,000 per cabinet.

• UB should outfit seven medium-sized classrooms with educational technology-three in Diefendorf on the South Campus and four on the North Campus: one each in Park, Talbert, Fillmore and Clemens halls.

• UB should upgrade its existing IT equipment, including replacing five CRT video projectors, replacing all Infocus projectors, adding seven visualizers and providing 25 wireless mice and five wireless microphones for classrooms. Zambon noted this as a recurring expense.

• Classroom renovations and upgrades should be scheduled for six classrooms in O'Brian, one in Baldy and one in Fronczak.

• The university should do away with current chalkboards, the surfaces of which are badly worn and, in some cases, cannot be erased. To do this, UB should implement a one-year pilot program, installing two or three different kinds of boards-chalk, dry erase, etc.- in select classrooms. Based on a survey of instructors who use those rooms throughout the course of the year, the committee would decide what types of boards to install.

• As well, the committee recommends rectifying a lack of chalkboard space for heavy users, such as instructors in math, chemistry and physics, by installing additional chalkboards in one classroom each in Fronczak, Norton and Baldy halls.

• Zambon said UB should replace its "guillotine lecterns"-those whose tops are raised and are held in place by a wire bracket-as well as desks that lack the adequate space on which students can use laptop computers.

• In response to maintenance problems, Zambon said the university should employ students to conduct audits of classrooms by adhering to a formal checklist.

• Finally, the committee plans to remedy the problem of IT cabinets that are “not usable by people in wheelchairs or people with special needs,” Zambon said. In an effort to comply with the law, UB is consulting with the School of Architecture, which has begun developing a prototype for a universally accessible IT cabinet.

Michael Easley, clinical associate professor of oral biology, raised concern over inadequate accommodations on the South Campus.

“Luckily, I quit requiring attendance because if I had everybody show up, I wouldn’t have room for them,” said Easley, referring to his current classroom in Kimball Tower.

Zambon said there are plans to redesign classrooms in both Kimball and Diefendorf, and also lower the capacity of the rooms.

In conjunction with the classroom recommendations, Mark Greenfield, Web development manager at UB, presented an overview of a new classrooms-specific Web site scheduled to go live March 1.

Greenfield said the new site will eliminate hierarchical confusion and serve as a “one-stop site for all of the classroom issues.”

The site will include a host of features and options, such as a schedule of upgrades; digital lecture recordings, which can be posted to the Web at no cost; a classroom-scheduling section; a classroom inventory providing detailed information about the classroom space and its contents, and a custom-search option to help locate a particular classroom that would accommodate an instructor’s specific criteria.

The site will be able to be accessed at http://wings.buffalo.edu/faculty/classrooms.