Instructional Space Committee at Wheaton College provides oversight and sets priorities for all aspects of the college’s instructional spaces, including the creation, pedagogical design and layout, maintenance, upgrades, scheduling policy, and removal.
Mission
At the request of Provost Lee and Vice President Rynbrandt, the Instructional Space Committee at Wheaton College provides oversight and sets priorities for all aspects of the college’s instructional spaces, including the creation, pedagogical design and layout, maintenance, upgrades, scheduling policy, and removal. The committee will be empowered to make decisions related to equipment, furnishings and other specific operational issues and will develop consensus recommendations for the Provost and VP of Finance on additions or removals of classrooms, significant financial investments, and other more strategic matters.
Structure
Membership consisting of Academic and Administrative Leaders from across campus who have direct involvement with the funding, maintenance, scheduling, and use of instructional spaces. The Assistant Provost, Director of Facilities, and Chief Information Officer will serve as co-chairs. The committee will have representatives from the following departments:
- The Provost’s Office
- Facilities
- Academic and Institutional Technology (AIT)
- Auxiliary Services
- Registrar
- Technology Information Resources (TIR) Committee
- Ad-hoc: Temporary participants from departments or divisions who have historically scheduled classes/events/meetings in rooms under discussion
- Academic Deans, Directors, Chairs, and Department Heads
- Administrative Directors and Department Heads
- Student Development
- Student Government
Objective/Mandate
- Further facilitate excellent teaching and learning at Wheaton College using instructional spaces. Review classroom feedback to inform classroom improvement recommendations.
- Demonstrate stewardship: understand resource constraints and develop methodologies to optimize the inventory of spaces to balance demand with the resources needed to continually support them.
- Review utilization data and establish a hierarchy of use for all spaces across campus. Predict future instructional space needs and develop a strategic plan.
- Establish guidelines for the creation of new and refreshment of existing instructional spaces. Participate in the development of guidelines for technology installed.
- Prioritize instructional space creation, redesign, removal, or refresh.
- Seek input from faculty in departments or divisions who have historically scheduled classes/events/meetings in rooms that are impacted by the planning process.
- Revise and maintain scheduling and use policies, regardless of the spaces’ funding sources or location. This includes the development of consistent definitions for types of rooms and the review for requests for department or priority-use instructional spaces.
- Provide a plan for instructional space scheduling in response to location-specific or campus-wide emergencies.
Operating Principles
Meetings are held monthly, or as determined by the committee.
Team Members (Fiscal Year 2024)
- Jay Bieszke, Director of Facilities - co-chair
- Alan Wolff, Chief Information Officer - co-chair
- Joann Beck, Scheduling Services
- Diane Krusemark, Registrar
- Whitley Grey, Facilities-Planning and Design
- Steve Park, Academic & Institutional Technology
- Dan Burden, Faculty Chair, Technology Information Resources Committee
- Mary Vanderschoot, Dean, Natural Sciences