BCRC Open House

This is my draft of the remarks I gave for the BCRC open house.

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming to our open house.

I would particularly like to thank George Drake. He was really key to helping make sure we thought things through and kept track of the details so that everything turned out as we wanted.

Most of all, I would like to thank Rolf and Sally -- it was their idea to renovate all of 3rd floor Morrill IV South in one piece that first got this project started. They pitched the idea over and over -- for perhaps 5 years -- before it finally got funded.

And I would like to thank them for their confidence in me. To let me design the facility the way I've always wanted it. This really has been a dream come true for me.

In 1996, I was invited to come to UMass to direct the Biology Computer Resource Center that the Department had created with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rod Murphey, who was the PI on the grant, and other department faculty, recognized the transformative force that information technology was having on science education. And they wanted to hire a professional science educator to help the faculty use technology for education to support the Life Sciences -- not just Biology but the Life Sciences. And in a national search, they picked me.

When I arrived, the BCRC was already set up. The grant provided funding for the computers, but not for any renovations. So they had plunked some computers down on old lab benches in a part of the building where the air handling system was broken and unrepairable, and when I arrived, we did the best that we could do.

The BCRC has been heavily utilized by undergrauate students since it was first set up. We've almost always had upwards of 10,000 sign-ins annually. I don't have detailed records from before we started building student accounts, but since 2005, we've built accounts for about 25,000 different UMass Students.

When we learned we were going to be able to renovate the space, I reached out to BCRC users and Biology Faculty to ask them what was working, and should be preserved, and what were the limitations that we should try to address.

Here's what we've made.

We've created an environment with computers, but with an additional station at each spot, with power and USB chargers, for students to use their own devices. And we've made it easy for students to connect to our displays using HDMI or VGA, to make it easy to show what they're working on to collaborators.

We've created an environment both for students to work individually at one end, but also with dividers so that groups can have space to work.

We have room for 48 students in a class, but we have 24 fully adjustable chairs, for students who are tall or short -- or just going to be working for a long time.

Finally, the furniture is all reconfigurable. The tables look round, but they're actually groups of three. And they can be arranged as 8 groups of three or as 6 groups of four, leaving the area near the projector open for students to roll in, sit in a circle, and discuss something.

And we have Blackboards! Real blackboards! With map rails along the top so we can hang posters and use the BCRC for poster sessions.

And even my secret dream came true. When we were planning the new BCRC, I really wanted to find a home for all of the cool old computers I'd rescued over the years. To finally have the Living Museum of Dead Computers have a home is immeasurably gratifying.

It's been a busy year trying to keep the construction on track and then to set everything up and make it functional. But I hope you'll agree that the results were worth the effort.

Thanks once again for coming to our open house and helping make my dreams come true.