Since Fuller opened in 1990, the Computer Science Department has seen an overwhelming increase in its student population, more than double in the number of CS enrolled undergraduate students (183 enrolled in 1990, 466 in 1998). Alongside this we have the Computing & Communications Center, as well as the Instructional Media Center in the same building, and their functionality and staffing has also increased over these 10 years. You can see evidence of this crowding in the ADP where the CCC Helpdesk expanded, or in the numerous cubicle-lands areas. A more recent symptom has been the displacement of the Zoo and Garden labs.
In my past 3 years here, Fuller was the place one could go for all computer needs any time of the day. One was able to edit web pages with Windows PC's, do group programming or maple projects on the UNIX X-terminals, or just check e-mail in between classes. As the need for these lab resources increased again this year, the administration amazingly decided to remove over two-thirds of the X-terminals from Fuller labs. These X-terms were moved into two separate buildings that are not freely accessible 24-hours.
So what was so important that it warranted this? The old Garden lab area has been converted into a private CS lab, only for student projects in either of the Operating System classes. The old Zoo area is still under construction at this time but will be cubicle-land for CCC banner programmers, who will be moving as a part of the IMC's expansion into another cubicle-land in FL 111. Impressed so far?
The Fossil lab was funded by a substantial NSF grant for a proposal that Professor Claypool headed that would allow students in the OS classes to have immediate access to computers on which they could directly modify and observe changes to the kernel itself; in the past class projects have focused on creating programs that interact with the kernel or simulate some functionality. The benefits of this hands-on learning are apparent, especially when talking with the students.
However, one must weigh the benefits of this lab with the one it displaced. The Garden was in a centralized building with other computer labs and open to any students, most any time of the day. It is now in Atwater Kent in a corner room behind an ECE lab. Currently, this building closes at 10 PM during the weekdays. I wonder if the CS department considered using an emulator and virtual machine on a server, or any other plan that would of allowed the Garden lab to have stayed in Fuller. Unfortunately, the Fossil lab required the space that only a few rooms in Fuller have.
The functionality of the CCC and the IMC keeps increasing, causing the need for more Banner programmers, support staff for myWPI, PC networking personnel, Helpdesk staff, etc. This need has driven these departments to try to reallocate their available space and expand into other spaces. Currently, this area is not completed and probably will not be for a few weeks, at least.
The effects of these changes can already be felt. The major one for undergraduates is the overall loss of available labs and computers, restricted hours of use, and loss of a central computer lab building; this makes it harder for individuals without a computer and for groups to use public labs. Another problem is that there are only two labs for CS and MA classes to schedule weekly labs in. This is forcing the CS department to rearrange their B term class labs. Lab scheduling used to use both Garden and Zoo labs on Wednesdays if necessary, but now they are being forced to schedule labs in Garden on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
It is my opinion that the changes were not worth it, and all of these consequences make me wonder if the Administration thoroughly thought this though and considered all parties that would be affected. Under huge pressure from faculty and some students, the CCC is attempting to make Kaven Hall accessible 24 hours to certain students who need the Stat lab. I feel that it is more of an afterthought from them, though. It seems to me that, with the continual growth of all the departments, Fuller Labs cannot be expected to house all of them much longer.