The Design and Construction Department has come through with some wonderfully rendered designs of the Bear CLAW.  This design was approved this morning, and while the main counter and glass partition will probably take a little longer to be installed, everything could be ready by September 1.
Check out some of the other views of the [...]

This is a long post, but in the past few weeks a lot of work has been done on the Learning Commons and the Bear CLAW.  Given how soon the summer will be over, this is excellent news!
Dr. Darabi has given the first Learning Commons / CLAW presentation at SOAR (the new student orientation), and [...]

As of Monday, June 1, the Writing Center is in the Library!  There’s not much in the way of furniture for it, and it won’t start serving students until the 10th, but the move has been made.
This means that the first part of the Bear CLAW is in place.  As the summer progresses, expect to [...]

To get the word out about the CLAW, we need to start considering how we can let students know about the services offered.  This goes for both incoming students (who should be the easiest to reach) through commuting graduate assistants.  Below are the various means we’ve considered:

Within the Student Advisory Committee, there has been a strong contingent of people focused on branding the Learning Commons with a name and visual identity that will be recognizable and interesting to students while still emphasizing the Commons’ purpose as a centralized place for services. Of the nearly two dozen suggested names,  Bear Hub, Bear [...]

Herman Miller, a leading provider of office furniture in the United States, gave a presentation on what was possible in regards to furniture, lighting, and color in a learning commons.  Some of their more interesting ideas involved creating adaptable spaces to suit individuals’ ideal study environment.  This included moveable “sails” that could enclose an area [...]

Another contingent of people on the various Learning Common’s committees had an opportunity to visit MU’s Learning Commons.  Again, there’s doesn’t have the services integrated yet, but they’re planning to incorporate those elements in the near future.

Some of the committee members were fortunate enough to UMKC where they have built a Learning Commons of their own. They even managed to take some pictures while they were there.

A brief description of the expected duties of students who will be on the student advisory board for the Learning Commons.

March 12 2009 Service Integration Subcommittee meetings.