38 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN nside the Classroom in the Round on the second floor of Lehigh’s new Business Innovation Building, students sit in rows resembling the layers of an onion surrounding an open area. There’s no podium in the center, encouraging professors utilizing the room to participate in the lesson rather than lead it. Above, four sections of curved, 12-foot-wide LED screens, hanging from an acoustic wood tile ceiling in the middle of the room, combine to create a full-circle display. The screens can work in concert or display a different image and are controlled by a desktop display or tablet, giving everyone in the room equal views, access and the ability to collaborate. To make the most of its state-of-the-art video and audio capabilities, the walls have an acoustic treatment, designed to improve the audio quality in the room. On the ground level, the Behavioral Research Lab is centered around an observation room with a two-way mirror where researchers can unobtrusively record reactions of their subjects. Unique spaces that embrace the use of technology are one of two features that distinguish the 74,000-square-foot Business Innovation Building. The other is the investment Lehigh made in direct view LED monitors—the same technology used for scoreboards in stadiums and billboards on highways. The monitors provide a bright, high-resolution picture, eliminating the need to dim lights or pull shades—crucial in a building that features floor-to-ceiling glass windows. While the Classroom in the Round’s technology is unique to campus, all the rooms within the building are nearly as intuitive. Many can be customized to fit the needs of the students and professors. “We thought about the building requirements, the architectural drawings, but we always were thinking about flexibility and adaptability,” Georgette Chapman Phillips, the Kevin L. and Lisa A. Clayton Dean of the College of Business, says. “Putting the students first drove the building. This building had to be all about learning.” Located on East Packer Avenue diagonally across from the Rauch Business Center, the building, which the university actively planned since 2017, provides 16 additional teaching spaces for the College of Business’ undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition to the Behavioral Research Lab, the lower level houses the Rauch Center for Business, which includes mock interview rooms and a coaching space. Classrooms, labs, conference rooms and meeting spaces fill the building’s first two floors, and the third floor is reserved for the Vistex Institute for Executive Education, which aims to provide high-impact, shortduration programs for working professionals to enhance their skills. A double-sided stock ticker—35 feet wide and nearly one-and-a-half feet high—can be seen outside the building on Packer Avenue, as well as inside the first
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