An Innovative Inter-Departmental Laboratory Program

When a proposal was made to upgrade our two year operation to a four year departmentalized engineering school, certain academic areas were set up as a separate inter-departmental jurisdiction. One objective was to research better ways of designing and operating teaching laboratories-considered as one single dynamic system. Academically this led to (1) "open" laboratory operation, (2) students planning "lab programs" ahead of the lab day, and (3) lab tutors associated with a group of students throughout a set of laboratories, and not tied to one field. Economically it led to a single serviced work space, with mobile, quick-connect equipment that normally lives in an adjacent unserviced area.