WALC News

Wilmeth Active Learning Center to offer advanced learning environment (Aug 7 , 2017)

• The Thomas S. and Harvey D. Wilmeth Active Learning Center, which will serve as a new centerpiece in the heart of Purdue University’s campus and as a daily destination for thousands of students, will be up and running as the academic year begins. The center, under construction for more than two years, offers students a unique learning experience through active learning and integrated study rooms and library spaces.

Inside Purdue's new $79M Active Learning Center (Aug 3, 2017)

• We wanted to really highlight that fact that yes, this building is new and it’s an active learning center, but it’s sitting on the site of a building that had a very important role within the university — both for the power aspect, but also for the instruction," said Jim Mullins, Purdue's dean of libraries.

Purdue’s investment in active learning goes beyond a new building (July 26, 2017)

• The push for, and the promise of, active learning at Purdue has been deemed so necessary that more than 250 faculty have been invited to redesign their courses through initiatives like the IMPACT(Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation) program and more than 40 “active learning classrooms” – typically defined as classrooms with moveable seating and other features to facilitate collaboration – have been built across campus. This fall, Purdue’s investment in active learning makes an even bigger statement with the opening of the Wilmeth Active Learning Center, which will house 27 active learning classrooms, student collaboration space and technology like student-accessible wide-format printers and a data-visualization lab.

Purdue to take on active learning in new center (July 24, 2017)

• The Wilmeth Active Learning Center will open next month in the heart of Purdue University’s campus, and it will be used daily by close to 5,000 students and faculty. But the new learning center will change the way faculty interacts with students. “This is all the response to an initiative Purdue started about six years ago called ‘Impact,'” said Dean of Purdue Libraries Jim Mullins.

What changes come with the Active Learning Center? (June 8, 2017)

• Ranked since July 2012 as the University’s No. 1 capital project, the $79 million Active Learning Center results from a 10-year-long planned effort that strives to integrate innovation with student studies. During the day, classes will run in 27 rooms designed for active learning, a pedagogical approach which aims to engage “more of the student than merely their writing hand, and their eyes and ears,” according to the Purdue Center for Instructional Excellence. As soon as classes end, the classrooms will become study spaces, featuring an atrium looking out onto the bell tower as well as a full-service Au Bon Pain café and bakery.

Wilmeth Active Learning Center to open Aug. 7 (April 12, 2017)

• The Thomas S. and Harvey D. Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC) is on schedule to open to the public on Aug. 7. The WALC houses 27 collaborative active learning classrooms. After the spring 2017 semester, the building will consolidate six of the nine science libraries to form the Library of Engineering and Science in the heart of the Purdue campus.

New Purdue University center will feature innovative learning space (May 19, 2015)

• Purdue's new Thomas S. and Harvey D. Wilmeth Active Learning Center was designed to meet the needs of the University’s highly innovative IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation) program.