On any given day, as many as six thousand students populate the University of Arizona’s new Integrated Learning Center (ILC). They’re going to class, consulting their advisers, meeting in small groups, researching online, conferring with faculty, or kicking back in the courtyard after an exam.

Except for a few graduate students (in classes to learn how to teach with the center’s technology), the ILC’s student denizens are undergraduates. More than anywhere else on campus, the ILC is the freshman’s home away from home. As the center’s mission statement declares, it’s their "academic/intellectual ‘home base,’ which is especially important on a large and complex campus."

This remarkable underground facility sprawls beneath the very heart of the UA campus. Though most of it lies under the mall’s grassy expanse, the building feels light and airy, thanks in part to the spacious courtyard outside and the high ceilings within.

More than a meeting place
"The building puts parts of students’ academic life together in one place," says Beth Harrison, associate director of the UA teaching center and a key member of the team that operates the ILC. Everything is calculated to foster student success, she explains, from state-of-the-art equipment in the classrooms and Information Commons to the convenient proximity of faculty, advisers, librarians, and fellow students.

Facilities in the building, which opened for the spring 2002 semester, include: The Information Commons -- 29,000 square feet of space housing 250 computer workstations, 25 breakout and meeting rooms, an electronic classroom, 120 "wired workspaces," a printing and mail area, and a central help desk. Activity is brisk and conversations lively in the Information Commons, which extends into the main library ... though "it’s not meant to be a quiet library space," says Harrison. Rather, the roomy arrangement of space and equipment lends itself to the animated exchange of ideas.

The Freshman Year Center -- where freshmen in University College and the colleges of Science, Humanities, and Social and Behavioral Sciences receive advising and tutoring.

The Digital Media Resource Center -- offering help to faculty using the ILC’s high-tech tools and housing dual and single slide projectors, Macintosh Titanium laptops, and four rolling carts (each holding 15 laptops) for use in the classrooms.

The "Meeting Place" -- not merely a "faculty lounge," says Harrison, but "a place for faculty and students to work together on ideas."

Auditoriums and classrooms: A 300-seat and a 150-seat auditorium, two large classrooms each seating 150, four mid-size classrooms seating 60 and six small classrooms seating 28.

Tech tools at the ready
Every classroom’s advanced instructional tools include a remote-controlled DVD and VCR. There are dataports to which students can connect their own computers or the ILC’s rolling supply of laptops. Dataports are networked to the classroom’s Internet-ready computer, offering "a chance for student input to become part of a course," says Harrison. "Students’ ideas and creations can be saved, put on the class Web site, and become part of the course material."

The teaching stations have touch-panel control of all the equipment in the room, high-tech overhead projectors with telephoto lenses, and "flexcams" for projecting three-dimensional objects such as rock samples. Two screens in the front of the classroom allow for video on one screen and another display -- such as students’ questions -- on the other.

Though the technology is "highly sophisticated," says Harrison, it’s easy to operate, even for the technological neophyte. Moreover, the ILC employs two full-time media technicians and two half-time student technicians to "keep all the equipment going and do problem-solving with the faculty," she points out.

Technology is only part of the story, of course. "Good teaching and comprehensive learning don’t depend on technology," says Harrison, "but they are enhanced by technology. It reinforces the instructor’s message and sends it loud and clear to more students than might otherwise be reached. It also gives students more tools for communicating with instructors and each other." Though each class has its own Web site and students often have online assignments, "technology in the ILC is no substitute for live interaction" -- learning "face to face" with faculty and other students," she adds.

‘Overwhelmingly delighted’
Is the unique, innovative, stylish new structure worth its salt? Two surveys affirm that the Integrated Learning Center is a resounding success.

The students love it. A survey of 800 students showed most were "overwhelmingly delighted" with the ILC, says Harrison.

The teachers love it. "More than 120 instructors teach here," says Harrison. "In a survey, all but two responding said they wanted to teach here again."

"The architect deserves an A-plus," says Thomas A. Fleming, who taught 110 students in Astronomy 203 ("Stars") during spring semester in the ILC. "I use computer simulations to illustrate many of the concepts in my course," says Fleming, an associate astronomer in the Steward Observatory. "I can distribute laptops to the students during class and they can interact with these simulations. Better still, I require them to do several computer labs and tutorials on their own time. The Information Commons allows easy access to these programs."

Fleming particularly likes the "movable furniture" in the classrooms because it allows him "to apply interactive-learning principles in a learner-centered environment to a large class.

"I’ve been able to get student feedback very quickly during a lecture or exercise," he adds, "by using the Personal Response System, through which students can anonymously indicate their preferences or the answers to problems."

‘A new standard’
In the higher-education milieu, where technology gains importance every day -- not only as a tool but as a topic of study -- facilities such as the ILC will someday be the norm, Harrison predicts, saying, "We’ve set a new standard for what needs to be in a classroom."