Find the perfect fit—chairs for SHED/Wallace classrooms on display at Fireside Lounge

Where you sit in a classroom makes a difference, and so does the chair you sit on.

New chairs for the 27 classrooms in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) and in Wallace Library will be on display in the Fireside Lounge this week. Students are invited to sample the different furniture until Feb. 4.

Most of the chairs on display have an attached “tablet arm” and are contenders for the 22 classrooms in Wallace Library. These examples are versatile and mobile and promote flexible learning environments for faculty to reconfigure as needed.

One standard chair in the selection is a possible option for the SHED’s five large classrooms, which can seat 150 students. Instead of the tiered static rows of a traditional lecture hall, the furniture in these rooms will seat six students per round table.

Student feedback via QR code surveys will help guide the SHED Classroom Utilization Team’s final selections. The team will purchase 1,740 classroom chairs alone for the SHED and Wallace Library, according to Sandi Connelly, principal lecturer in the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences and a SHED classroom furniture team leader. Lounge chairs and tables, also on display, will provide casual seating areas in the SHED and in Wallace.

The furniture survey is one way students can have a say on the future space, she said.

“We want the students to get a sense of what is coming in the SHED/Wallace classrooms, and we want them to be able to participate in the process,” Connelly said.

The SHED, the largest project since the Henrietta campus opened in 1968, is scheduled to open in fall 2023.