FirstEnergy Interactive Auditorium

   Lecture classes will never be the same now that the FirstEnergy Interactive auditorium is finished, said Jeff Fruit, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

    The 150-seat lecture hall has all brand-new technology to meet students’ need for a more interactive classroom experience, he said.

   “We know teaching today with students is different than it used to be,” Fruit said.

“Lectures don’t work as well. (With the FirstEnergy hall), it’s not sitting back and snoozing through a lecture anymore.”

   The hall has three large projectors and viewing screens for multimedia presentations. There are hookups on the walls alongside the seats for video cameras for live recordings. A control room in the back of the hall means the speaker doesn’t have to worry about his or her audio and visuals.

    Fruit said there are also power outlets, Ethernet ports and wireless spots throughout the building so students can use their laptops in class. Accessibility was also a concern when designing the room, he said. The room has ground level access with desktops in the front row without seats for students in wheelchairs.

   A $500,000 gift from Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., matched by an anonymous donor, made the lecture hall possible. Talks with FirstEnergy, the university and faculty helped design the room.

    The room can do more than hold some of the larger lecture classes, Fruit said. The hall can also host guest speakers for the classes and separate events. Having more seating, combined with a large lobby outside the hall, means the school can bring in bigger names, he said, such as speakers from MIT and Google.

    More than a half dozen JMC classes are scheduled in the room for spring semester.

— Bryan Wroten, The Co-Lab