The beaming smiles on the students' and faculty's
faces said it all: It was good to be home; better yet, to
have a real one to go to.
Johns Hopkins' new Education Building, formerly known
as Seton Court, officially opened its doors last week. The
73,000-square-foot building at 2800 N. Charles St. is now
the residence of SPSBE's
Graduate Division of Education's Baltimore-based
programs.
The Education Division faculty and staff moved into
the building--located just south of the Homewood campus
between 28th and 29th streets--in January, and the first
classes there were held on Monday.
Previously, the Education Division occupied space in
Whitehead Hall, Shaffer Hall and a townhouse located on
East 29th Street.
Nancy Cohen, a lecturer in education, said the
reaction to the new building has been overwhelmingly
positive. Personally, she said, it feels great to have
everybody under one roof.
"There really is a sense of community now," said
Cohen, who came to Johns Hopkins in 2002. "Students don't
have to walk across campus to see their faculty, and
faculty can have closer interaction with each other, as
we're now just down the hall from each other. This really
is a wonderful, collegial space for us."
The first-floor Gallery, which
features computer workstations and ample comfortable
seating, is already a popular gathering spot.
PHOTO BY HPIS/WILL KIRK
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The Graduate Division of Education, which this year
has 1,771 students, offers programs for the preparation and
continuing development of teachers, administrators, special
educators and counselors. The division is organized into
the departments of Teacher Development and Leadership,
Teacher Preparation, Special Education, and Counseling and
Human Services.
The four-story Education Building features 11 "smart"
classrooms; five seminar/classrooms; two conference
classrooms; a Technovations Lab, where students will be
able to prepare digital lessons and work on their
electronic portfolios; a computer lab; a Gallery with
computer workstations; a counseling suite; student and
faculty lounges; and 36 offices.
All classrooms, halls and the Gallery feature wireless
Internet service. The counseling suite contains small rooms
with two-way mirrors so that faculty can observe students
in a session.
Paul Adams, senior director of administrative services
for SPSBE, said that the new facilities represent a
significant step up for the division in terms of technology
and services.
"We really have state-of-the-art technology in here,
better than the best we have on Homewood campus," Adams
said. "The biggest advantage is that now faculty will have
all the technology right at their disposal, rather than
placing an order for some piece of equipment to be
delivered to his or her classroom."
Each classroom desk has a USB connection so that
students can plug in their laptops and project a
presentation on the main screen for the entire class to
critique. Faculty can control all the systems from a
wired-in podium.
"Students in particular think the building is just
great. For one, they are not spread all over the place like
they were before," he said.
Diana Filo, a master of arts in teaching candidate,
had her first class in the building on Thursday, and she
loved it.
"We have a lot of added benefits in this facility that
really help out students like us," Filo said. "We work full
time and go to class at night; this building provides us
with computers with Internet access and vending machines
that provide actual meals. All those added bonuses help to
ease the stress of getting a master's degree while teaching
full time."
The first-floor Gallery, which features computer
workstations and ample comfortable seating, has already
proven to be a popular meeting spot for students before and
after class. Students also have been congregating at a
first-floor computer lab, where they can check e-mails and
work on assignments. In addition, the second floor has the
Hall, a large multipurpose room.
Previously, students had no central place to
gather.
The building originally opened in 1907 as St. Joseph's
School of Industry, which in 1928 was renamed Seton High
School. The school merged with Archbishop Keogh High School
in 1988 and moved to another location. The building was
later sold and converted into offices. Johns Hopkins
purchased the property in April 2003 from Sheppard Pratt
Investment.
To honor the building's past, large framed
black-and-white prints of the building's days as a school
line many of the hallways. Johns Hopkins also preserved the
architectural integrity of the building, which features two
wings, a three-story central grand stairwell, skylights,
wide corridors and glass transoms. Some of the building's
religious artifacts, left from its days as a Catholic high
school, also remain in order to retain its historical
identity.
SPSBE takes up the building's first two floors but is
not its only tenant. The Milton S. Eisenhower Library
occupies offices on the fourth floor for its
Entrepreneurial Library Program, whose staff moved in last
month. The Johns
Hopkins University Press will occupy some of the third
floor with its Production, Marketing and Circulation
departments. The northwest corner of the third floor will
be the new home for SPSBE's
Center for
Summer Learning.
Current plans are for the Press to take occupancy on
March 21 and the Center for Summer Learning by the end of
April.
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